and places that the reader would have to know in order to understand what is to follow. In the middle you should tell all the events that lead up to the end. In the end you must tell the events that finish the story; they must be interesting, and, if possible, unexpected events. If you talk over the questions that follow, you may be able to write a very good story.

a. Where is the scene that the picture presents?

b. What kinds of sports do the boys and girls of the neighborhood engage in?

c. Can you select names for the two boys and the girl in the motor boat?

d. Which one of the three do you select for the hero or the heroine of the adventure? It is not necessary, of course, for all to select the same one.

e. How do you account for the fact that the three young people are putting off in a boat? What previous events might account for it?

f. Why does the girl wave a telegram?

g. What is the man on the steamboat so much excited about?

h. What are the young people going to do?

i. When they have accomplished what they want to do, how may that give the story an interesting end? As usual, the stories need not all be alike. In fact, it will be better if they are all different. They may have different titles.

WRITING AND READING STORIES

224. After your discussion you may want a day or two to think over the story you are going to write,

or you may want to go at it at once while you are in the humor. Do whichever seems best. Write the stories at home if so directed.

When the work is all done, some of you will read your stories to the room, and you should answer the following questions about each one: a. Did the writer tell in the beginning all that you needed to know in order to understand and to like what followed?

b. Did he make the characters interesting persons? c. Did he give an interesting train of events that led up to the end?

d. Was the end interesting? And especially, was it surprising?

e. Did the writer leave anything unexplained in the story? If he did, it was a fault.

EXERCISES IN CRITICISM

225. In the following pages are printed many compositions written by pupils in the seventh and eighth grades. Some of them are personal experiences and desires, some are conversations written

from memory, some are stories written about pictures in the magazines, and some are descriptions and explanations about persons and things the writers had seen or heard of. Before they were printed, the spelling, which was not always what it should have been, was corrected, except in the case of the omission of the apostrophe in contractions. In a very few cases where there were mistakes of an unusual sort in grammar or idiom, the wording was slightly changed. But in every other particular

in wording, in capitalization, in punctuation, and in paragraphing—the compositions stand here just as they were written. It will be your task to

criticize them.

In each case one of your number will stand before the class and read the composition aloud. He must read with expression, for otherwise it will be difficult for you to answer some of the questions that will be asked, especially in the matter of punctuation. After the reading of a composition, discuss it as you think best, paying special attention to the following points:

a. Is the composition a complete thing? Or, to put the matter still another way, does the writer stick to his subject? Does he finish it?

b. Do you think it is a personal experience or desire, a conversation written from memory, a story written about a picture, or a description or explanation of something the writer has seen or heard of? c. If it is not a story written from a picture, consider whether a good artist could draw a picture illustrating it. If so, explain in detail what you think the picture would be.

d. Is the composition written in a straightforward manner so that it is easy to read, or, on the contrary, does the writer get "mixed up" in his telling, so that you have a little difficulty in understanding him? If the latter is the case, determine how to correct the difficulty.

e. Did the writer tell enough about his subject to make a good effect?

f. Do you consider the paragraphing good? If not, how would you change it?