1. Composition
The object of the first year in composition should be to encourage pupils to express freely their own ideas and impressions. Fluency of expression is to be encouraged by every possible means. The most effective method of developing this free and fluent expression is to have the pupils write on subjects in which they are most interested. It is sometimes said that the difficulty in writing themes in the first year lies in the fact that the pupils have nothing to write about from their own experience, and that therefore subjects must be drawn largely from the reading; that is, pupils must reproduce others’ thoughts rather than express their own. It seems doubtful whether this paucity of ideas really exists, for it is indeed a stupid girl or boy in the first year at high school who is not interested in many things in active everyday life, and who does not talk constantly of these things to schoolmates and friends. It is doubtless true that the pupil often does not consider his simple experiences of sufficient importance to be the subjects of his compositions and must therefore be led by the teacher to see the possibilities which they contain. It is the duty of the teacher of composition, as has been said, to familiarize himself with the surroundings of his pupils, and to interest himself in their various activities in and out of school. It is only by such sympathy and interest that he can get his pupils to express themselves freely in their themes. Experience has shown that the daily life of the individual pupil, and the varied activities of the school can be made to furnish practically all of the theme subjects not only for first year composition, but also for that of the other three years.
While fluency and spontaneity of expression should be encouraged in every way possible, the teacher must also insist on accuracy in details of expression. The common errors in grammar, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and other matters of form should be corrected constantly, and by the end of the first year all such mistakes should be fairly well eliminated from the average pupil’s work. In connection with the correction of errors in the themes, the rules of spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar may be reviewed to advantage from time to time.