Show MISS KELLOtfGS ESSAY Below is tho essay of Miss Josephine Kellogg of Provo to whom was awarded premium No 8 of cash 30 at the late fair the subject being How to Teach Compo s ition In the educational department of the I premium list for the eighteenth exhibition of the Deseret Agricultural and Manu m acturing society I find a call for suggestions sug-gestions for original methods of teaching composition It pleases mo well that the suggestion of a method will do for what I have to offer is hardly dignified and complete enough neither is it sufficiently Hcut and dried to be distinctly labeled a method However I do not find that the expression expres-sion of thought in writing is to my pupils generally so much of a bugbear as it was tom to-m self and my schoolmates in the composi tionwriting days of my youth when wo were cast adrift upon the boundless sea of abstractions without rudder chart or compass but with all sails set in tho hope of catching some breeze of ideas in regard to Spring Hope or Patriotism On the other hand I must confess that none of my pupils have grown to fame in authorship Numbers of them are married surrounded by olive plants but none of them so far as I know wears a laurel wreath The cultivation of thought to express and of language in which to communicate it to others should begin so far as the teachers is concerned with the childs first irst days in school and continue through the course Parents may and should begin the work still earlier and students should and many of them will in form wi one or another carry it on through life In the fiast reading lessons before chil dren take books at all I use as fur as possible pos-sible their own words Alittlo boy slips his hat into his desk instead in-stead of depositing it with the others Per haps after a while he claps it upon his head almost without thinking The little folks are called to recite I say I see something on a desk that looks out of place I will try to make a picture of it I is somewhat this color yellow and it has a band about the middle of this color blue What is iti I Full chorus A hat I print these words and teach them Now tell me again about the picture I is a hat I print these words and teach them then have the children look about and toll me whose hat it was patterned after One little boy will say It is my hat The others I is Dans hat They learn to read what they say themselves them-selves more readily than anything else The teacher must use judgment as to what and how much nhall bowritten down read and copied A little boy nudges his seatmate and motions out the window When I call the class I ask What did Rays hand seem to say when he jerked toward the window awhile a-while ago Irving thinks and after a little remembers He says He wanted me to look at their cow Then what was il I his hand trying to say Seo our cow some one in the class soon replies We talk about the cow and perhaps the next thing set down is We feed her hay Do I cal this composition Yes A series of papers has recently appeared in leading magazine on Collaboration in Authorship I know nothing practically of its advantages in authorship but In cul tivating the incipient powers of expression expres-sion in school it is most valuable As iron sharpeneth iron1 so the action and reaction re-action of youthful wits sharpen the meutal faculties and quicken the flow of ideas A favorite way to use occasionally with occasionaly the children of the intermediate classes for stimulating interest in descriptive composition com-position is to ask them to imagine that a little blind boy sits on the front seat with his sightless eyes turned toward the object and that they must lend their good eyes toe s to-e it with and their words to picture it to his ears In like manner we may write a letter tome so to-me one living on the prairie in Iowa who has never seen a mountain or a valley andy tr and-y by our words to enataln them to see these grand mountains and this beautiful valley Let each Ole furnish part of tho descrip tion and let all criticise improve and polish as much as seems profitable The following is a composition about a mouse written day before yesterday in my school by first second frst and third reader pupils from eight to twelve years old Each sentence was given by a different pupil and are hero given in just the order they gave them Wo had a little mouse from my trap passing from hand t5 hand as wo composed A little Swedish girl naively an A mouso is a little creature It is covered with soft gray fur excepting its ears its tail and its feet said the next and so on I has whiskers for feelers Ir has two eyes like little black beads I It has two pretty round ears so thin wo I can see through them It has a long slim tail nearly bare I has four slim feet with five toes and claws on each foot I has a long sharp cws When alive it is full of mischief 1 agreed witn the girl who said That would be a pretty lesson to put in a reader j with a picture of a mouse j I i Before copying into their note books it j is i well that they should be encouraged to add anything they may think of pi make any changes which they think will improve iI what bas been jointly composed Every daN and with alaiostevery lesson there should be something in the line oi f composition work i it is only a sentence to paraphrase is figurative explain an allusion allu-sion or give an original and independent opinion upon some matter read about or talked about in tho intermediate and grammar gram-mar grades Children studying geography should bo permitted nay required to write letter to tlieirfriends about the countries studied For composition work one term iu a Normal Nor-mal school I once gave out a series of ini a inary Journeys in Europe sore5 some of tho students made them very interesting and t quite I degree realistic A school paper to be read aloud by two pupils at the end of each mouth is a pleasant pleas-ant vehicle for miscellaneous compositions i i sufficient oversight is given by the teacher to secure an agreeable ariety and timeliness in the subjects Winter before last l or rather in the fall during the presi i dential campaign three pupils were asked to write political articles recommending the candidate and platform each preferred I I knew that one was from 1 Republican family ono from a Democratic and one from a Prohibitionist household That was a very lively number of our paper though nothing in the least offensive was indulged in by any of the youthful politicians politi-cians cans One of the girls undertook to furnish a brief review of Bore standard poem romance or article in current literature each month and one or two others had their specialties Advanced pupils should not only be formally for-mally instructed in the elements of style but they should constantly be led to tho study of examples in the bes authors la no other way can a pure and elevated taste become a fixed possession but by drinking at the purest streams of literature Students must be held to a study of words their derivation and synonyms their history and poetry The ailembracing newspaper has its uses many and important but as literary models it must be said of them generally I generaly as the little girl said of pins many lives are saved by not swallowing them And the youthful omnivora must be led to per i clove the solecisms in language the crudi ties and exaggerations in style and the insincerity in-sincerity of tone all too prevalent else their own mode and matter will suffer from the influence Thero are journals whose regular and constant perusal for a term of years fairly constitutes a liberal education but unfor tunately in these days even where they are taken their influence is almost swept away by the tide of locals dailies and specials which sweep through our house and which none of us knows how to do without I do not stop to particulariz n flashy and meritricious class of storypapers and an even lowe class of ingmatter but when teach ing in the higher grades of our pub iii schools I have been made painfully aware of their blasting effect upon the youthfu taste for such matter as is set forth in our textbooks and school libraries and I havi also seen what uphill work it is to seen any genuine and substantial composition work from such readers Nevertheless if one has the patience of Job and the persistence of the importunate widow anrt can get those whoso readin has been thinner and less nourishing than foam to take up some study of natural history his-tory or human nature or of occupations or of almost anything and to do some sin ccro writing upon it it will be apt to prc wen a we-n excellent corrective They should be restrained from imaginative writing though another class of pupils will be benelitted by inventing stories But in all cases let excellent models be held before the growing plastic mind in whatever department of literature and there will be a gradual development and improvement in the matter and manner of < expression JOSEPHINE KeLLOGG Provo I |