DISCUSSION OF A PICTURE

25. Examine the first picture in this book and talk about it in class.

points:

Consider the following

a. What do you see in the picture? Describe it in

detail. What do you think it means?

b. What do you know of the life of the Indian before

the coming of the white man? How did he get his food? How did he dress? In what kind of houses did he live? What kind of government did he have? Why did he fight against the white man?

c. Who was victorious in the fight? How does the Indian live now? Does he still hunt and fish? Does he engage in farming and industry? What does the United States government do for him? Is his race increasing or diminishing? Do you think he is happier now than when there were no white men here?

Perhaps you will use a whole recitation period for this discussion.

WRITING ABOUT THE PICTURE

26. You talked about the picture from three different points of view. First, you described it. Second, you talked about the Indian as he was before the coming of the white man. Third, you talked about his condition after the coming of the white man. Now when you write on this subject your composition will have to be written in three paragraphs, one for each topic.

What title will you give the composition? You cannot call it merely "The Indian," for this would lead the reader to expect that you were going to tell all you could possibly find out about the subject, which is not true; you are going to tell only a little about the picture to make its meaning clear. You will have to select some title that will indicate the decline of the red race. Perhaps you can think of several suitable titles.

Take a recitation period to write the composition. Be careful about the way you write your title. Be careful, too, about the margins.

CRITICISM

27. Exchange papers, and give one another the benefit of your judgment. Consider the following particulars:

a. Does the title stand out prominently?

b. Are the margins even and of sufficient width?

c. Does each of the three paragraphs sound as if it were one topic?

d. Is each sentence brought to its proper end, and does each sentence begin with a capital letter?

e. Are there any mistakes in spelling? in grammar? If so, correct them.

f. Is the composition interesting? Why?

After you have carefully considered one another's compositions, have conferences in class, and try to remember the criticisms that will be of benefit to you.

This conference, too, may very well take a full recitation period.

COLLECTING PICTURES

28. It is likely that each of you sometimes finds an interesting picture on the back of a magazine or in an advertisement. It is worth while to bring such pictures to school, to give them into the care of some one appointed to keep them, and to select one occasionally for the kind of writing exercise you have just had. The picture you select for any day's work should be hung up before the room where everybody can examine it at his leisure; it should afterwards be discussed in class, and then be made the subject of a composition. You may want to make a composition of one paragraph about such a picture, or perhaps of two or three paragraphs; but you should not attempt to make your theme long.

The person who is appointed to care for the collection of pictures should make a portfolio to contain them. Refer to section 16, i, for instructions.

EXERCISE IN CRITICISM

29. Here are two themes written by two boys. Read them carefully, so that you may pass judgment on them afterward.

I

The boys

Once last summer we had a swimming race. were Frank Williams, Bob McCarthy, Glenn Martin, and I. We were to race from Manhattan Beach to Windsor Beach. We started, and Bob McCarthy had the lead next came Glenn Martin, I came next and Frank Williams came last.

When we got to the goal, Frank Williams came in first

I came third Bob McCarthy came second and Glenn Martin came last We made it in five minutes and three seconds.

II

The first thing I can clearly remember was my father's lumber camp. We spent the summer up there when I was about five years old. It was a large forest, surrounded by saw-tooth mountains, on the shore of Lake Superior, in Canada.

We stayed in a little log cabin right on the lake shore. We could hear the waves break on the rocks at night. The country was very wild and big game was plentiful.

One night when we were coming home from the lumber camp, which was about two miles away, we were very much frightened by the scream of a panther right above our heads. He had followed us quite a way, springing from tree to tree. Something frightened him because he got away very quickly.

One time when I was up at the camp for dinner, I saw two lumber-jacks eating. One used his knife for a fork, and the other used his fork like a dagger, that is he held it that way every time he took a bite I thought he would swallow his fork. After I had watched them I had no appetite for dinner.

30. These compositions are a good subject for conversation in class. Consider the following points: a. Is it not clear that one of the boys had thought more and felt more about what he had experienced than had the other? Which one was it? Give good reasons for your answer.

b. Consider the composition that you have judged to be inferior in this respect. What more could the

boy have told that you would like to know? In discussing this question, take up the composition paragraph by paragraph, and tell what you would like to have added to each.

c. Could the author of the other composition have added anything of interest to it? What?

d. Has your consideration of these questions made you see that you could have added something of interest to some composition that you have written in the past? What is it?

e. Every main division of a short composition should be written in a paragraph by itself. Can you see any reason for believing that the first sentence of the second paragraph of the first composition should be in the first paragraph?

f. Make a title for each composition; be sure that it fits.

g. Read both compositions aloud in class and determine

whether the writers brought all their sentences to an end by the use of the period, and began the next by the use of the capital letter. If they failed to do so, determine where changes should be made. Perhaps, in some places, you will prefer to use a comma rather than a period; the comma stands for a slighter break in the sentence than the period.

THE APOSTROPHE

31. The two compositions we have been considering were not printed precisely as they were written. It must be admitted that both writers made a few mistakes. For example, the boy who wrote the second composition omitted the apostrophe from the word father's. He doubtless knew, as you