Literature in the Elementary School

by Porter Lander MacClintock

Many pleasant experiments are to be made in connecting some of the handwork of the youngest children with their literature. The attempt to realize some of their images in actual stuff constitutes an artistic experiment that has its literary reverberations, and helps to deepen the association. Let them make a cloak for Little Red Riding-Hood, a fairies' coach of a nut shell, a boat, a tent—or whatever little object or property is imbedded in the story. Out of practically every story, and out of many of the poems, they get an inspiration for a picture or a bit of modeling. Such associations with literature are legitimate and natural. This appears very clear when we reflect that we are hoping to cultivate the taste and imagination of the children, and to teach them to love human life, with all that this implies, as well as to drill them in language, grammar, and writing.

It seems necessary to handle aspects of the problem of language and writing in connection with literature in several different places, as we come upon the topic from different points of view. As has been said before, it is the duty of the teacher of literature, and of the lessons in literature, to help along the work in the language arts. It is even fair to assume that the children will take more interest in their composition lessons, and will get more profit out of them, when they are attached to something they have done in literature; but this is because they get out of literature more impulse toward creation, and more inspiration toward a beautiful and striking manner of expression. But composition is not merely a medium of creative expression; it is a means of plain communication, and should be developed in both directions and from both sources. This means that the children should write in connection with all their subjects, so that they do not, on the one hand, associate "English" and writing with literature only, and do not, on the other hand, run the risk of forming no style but a literary style.

It is certainly true that we disquiet ourselves and persecute the children unnecessarily concerning the whole matter of writing during the elementary period. The children scarcely acquire the process of writing as a manual thing in the first four years. During the next four by good luck and much toil, most of them manage to reduce it to the stage of a tool. Their consciousness of the process added to their consciousness of their spelling and grammar, leaves them little freedom in using the written composition as an avenue of spontaneous expression. Add to this the fact that a large part of this period—the period of ten to fourteen—is the beginning of the great reticence. They are not telling what they know or feel; they have narrowed their vocabulary down to the absolutely necessary terms; they have seen through every device by which the teacher seeks to get them to express themselves. Their written compositions will be, therefore, dogged exercises, and should be connected, as far as possible, with colorless information subjects. There are exceptional children and exceptional classes, indeed, to whom these generalizations do not apply. We have all heard of classes in distant elementary schools which "loved" to write.

But there will of necessity be a certain amount of composition that will fall in with the work in literature, and will constitute one of the logical returns we ask of the children. This the teacher would like to have as spontaneous and as literary as possible. In general, we should like it to be creative, and not critical or reproductive. We would encourage them to devise new adventures of Odysseus, or of Robin Hood, to give an experience of their own organized into a genuine story, an interpretation and effective description of some incident or event that has interested them or been invented by them. It is necessary, if you expect to get anything literary or creative out of them, to help to put them in the creative and literary mood. Talk over with them the thing they mean to do; see that they have the vocabulary they will obviously need; enlarge their range of comparison and allusion by discussion; lead them to divide their material into suitable parts with some acceptable sequence; enrich their topics by kindred material; guide them into the observation and interpretation of material in the imaginative and literary way.

Some aspects of this process are illustrated in the following experience: A teacher had been reading Howard Pyle's Robin Hood, with occasionally one of the original ballads interspersed (but not the traditional "Robin Hood and the Potter"), for three months; the children had also memorized during the same time three short lyrics; and in every lesson there had been discussions; the time had come when they must make something. They decided to follow the plan of their book and tell how Robin Hood added a new member to his band. These children were making pottery by way of handwork, and had lately had an interesting visit to see a potter working with his wheel. So the suggestion naturally made by some member of the class, that the new member of Robin Hood's band be a potter, was received with instant favor. The teacher read them "Peter Bell," and their hero promptly became a peddler-potter—the very same, suggested an agile child, whom Tom, the Piper's son, found beating his ass, and upon whom he played the merry trick. By this time the class could be restrained no longer. They climbed over one another's shoulders, literally and figuratively, with eager suggestions and copious details. After discussing the plan long enough to suggest an organization of the material into three natural parts, the children were set to work. The orderly and patient children produced satisfactory stories, abundant in material and beautiful in detail. All the others produced stories which, however disorderly and careless, were breathless with feeling and overflowing with stuff. Some of them adopted Tom, the Piper's son, as the new member of the band, not being able to forgive the potter for beating the ass; some adopted them both; others, only the Potter, duly lessoned and converted; all provided for the donkey. When they were aroused and provided, there was a spontaneous outflow of what was in every case, allowing for the varying temperaments and acquirements of the children, a really literary production.

As long as the children are seriously hampered with the mechanics of writing, they should be allowed to dictate their work, when any practical plan can be devised for this. When the class is not too large, they should be taught to make a co-operative product, the teacher taking down what they agree upon, revising it to suit them. In the case of the older children these spontaneous and "literary" productions should not be too minutely criticized, and the revising and rewriting of them should not become a matter of drudgery. They should have other and more colorless written work upon which they may be drilled, lest the drill should kill their creative impulse or spoil their pleasure in the created product. Their more important productions may be filed and given back to them six months later for their own correction. This critical review of their own work is generally an occasion of much pride, and the acquisition of some wholesome self-knowledge.

It is possible that this attempt to distinguish literary writing from other composition may convey the impression that literature and literary production are set off, quite apart from life, and the children's other experiences and interests. This would be a misfortune. Whenever any aspect of their lives, their work, or their play appeals to their emotions and their imaginations, when they are provided with a large vocabulary and have opened for them avenues of comparison, they will turn back a literary product. But it is seldom desirable to create this atmosphere in connection with their other studies, and the literary style and method is not a desirable one for all subjects.

For the sake of the practice in writing and composing, and for the sake of acquiring ease in telling in writing what they know or desire to communicate, the children may write something every day. But not oftener than once in six weeks can we build up in a class the atmosphere, furnish the material, and bring up the enthusiasm for the production of something worth while in a literary way—story, essay, play, or poem.

To set the elementary child, or even the high-school scholar, tasks of investigating in literature, as if he were a little college student is a serious mistake; or to set for him themes which call for such opinions and judgments as could be safely given only by a mature person. For instance, to ask the eighth grade in the average school to write a character-sketch of Shylock is to make a bid for insincerity and unfounded judgment. But satisfactory results may be obtained by giving the children a simple syllabus of questions and suggestions, indicating quite suitable problems for them to work at in their out-of-school reading; this little syllabus is then made the basis of class discussion, and parts of it finally, of written work. It requires some skill to make such a syllabus, since it must not be made up of leading questions nor of tediously detailed suggestions, neither must it attempt to exhaust the material; but must be calculated to stimulate the children to observe and to think, and must be designed to guide them into those aspects of the story, play or poem that they may suitably and profitably consider. Such a guide should be placed in the hands of young students including secondary children, whenever they are studying a mature and complex masterpiece.

The dramatization and acting of any bit of literature that yields to this process is in many ways the most satisfactory return we can ask. In a previous chapter much has been said about the various dramatic settings and accompaniments of literature. From the treatment of rhymes and jingles as suggestions for games and plays, on through the genuine dramatization of a story, to the presentation of The Merchant of Venice or some other developed literary drama, the teacher should forward as much as possible this mode of calling out the children. They must, of course, be guided by the teacher in the choice of a story for dramatization, seeking one that has clearly marked movements, some distinct events, a pretty well-rounded plot, occasion for dialogue, and other dramatic possibilities. The class may early be guided to the division of the story into its natural acts and scenes, which implies the omission of superfluous incidents and details. The difficulty comes in the supplying of the actual dialogue. The resourceful teacher will secure this dialogue by various means; for some of the scenes it will flow off without effort from the class in lesson assembled, one child suggesting a remark, another the reply, these being recorded and criticized by the class. For certain other scenes the dialogue may be prepared by groups of two or more children working apart from the class. For certain crucial and lofty scenes the teacher should make the "book." The whole must be submitted for discussion in the class, and may in the end call for considerable revision from the teacher; for the younger children cannot be expected to know and to meet the demands of dramatic dialogue—it must not only be speech, and fairly good as conversation, but it must forward the play with every sentence. Of course, this revision must never be so sweeping as radically to remake the play, or even to alter the essential character that the children have given it, no matter how crude it may seem to the teacher and to other mature persons who hear it. Let it stand as a bit of child-art, just as we rejoice to let crude productions stand as folk-art.