Story-Telling Ballads / Selected and Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the Boys' and Girls' Own Reading

by Unknown

PROGRAMME FOR AN ENTERTAINMENT

One or more ballads sung by the pupils.
Recitation.
Dramatization.
Ballad-reading.
A ballad solo.
Recitation.
Reading of the best original ballad composed by a pupil.
Dramatization.
Recitation.
Close: the audience and pupils may sing one or more popular, well-known American ballads, such as may be found in any good song-collection.

In making up her Programme, the teacher should avoid selecting very long ballads for memorization and recitation. It is best to let the pupils who are to recite, choose the ballads they like best. She should be careful to balance her Programme with verses of all kinds—grave and gay, sad and weird, romantic and historical. She should so artistically compose her Programme that it will play on the emotions of her audience, moving it from laughter to tears, from awe to the heroic. That is what ballads are for, to touch the heart, as well as the head.