VI. Oral Composition
Be sure that your story has a good point; is free from slang; and possesses a beginning, a middle, and an end.
VII. Written Composition
Suggestion: Imagine that the classroom is the local room of a daily paper, the pupils reporters, and the teacher the editor. The stories may be written in class.
VIII. Memorize
THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s;—he takes the lead
In summer luxury;—he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost
The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.John Keats.
[←Contents]
CHAPTER VII
THE USE OF CONTRAST
“Give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.”—Isaiah.