1. What is the effect of the abrupt beginning? Where else in the essay is abruptness made a means of producing literary effect?
  2. Point out excellent use of local color.
  3. Divide the essay into its principal parts.
  4. Show that the essay rises in power.
  5. How does the writer arouse the reader's sympathy for the characters?
  6. How does the writer awaken the reader's patriotism?
  7. What opinion of America do oppressed foreigners have? To what extent is their opinion well founded? To what extent is their opinion not well founded?
  8. What impressions does a sea-coast city make upon immigrants?
  9. What sort of people oppress the immigrants after arrival in America?
  10. To what false beliefs is such oppression due?
  11. What opportunities does America present?
  12. What spirit should meet the aspirations of immigrants?
  13. What will do most to make immigrants into good Americans?
  14. Explain how the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers may be taught so that they will apply to the present as well as to the past.
  15. How may we help immigrants to do work that will make them into good Americans?
  16. Show that the conclusion of the essay emphasizes its entire thought.
  17. Show what rhetorical methods are employed in the essay.

SUBJECTS FOR WRITTEN IMITATION

1. How I Became a Good American11. Modernizing the De Coverley Papers
2. An Immigrant's Experience12. The Value of Sympathy
3. The Meaning of Freedom13. The Spirit of America
4. The Land of Opportunity14. Showing the Way
5. Making Good Americans15. First Experiences in America
6. The School and the Immigrant16. Letters from People in Other Lands
7. My Coming to America17. Being a Good American
8. Life in the Crowded Sections18. Enemies of America
9. Sweat Shop Experiences19. Uplifting the Foreign-Born
10. My Various Homes20. The America I Love

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING

Write down some worthy thought that you have concerning America. Then write a series of extremely personal incidents that will show graphically how you arrived at the thought you have in mind. Make the incidents short, condensed, and highly emphatic. Employ realistic characters, and give realistic quotations from their speech. Use the incorrect grammar, the slang, and the foreign words that the characters employ daily. Arrange the incidents so that they will rise more and more to your principal thought. Make your last incident reveal that thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Nijny-Novgorood. A Russian city on the Volga, the scene of a great annual fair.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD

By WILLIAM HENRY SHELTON

(1840-). An American patriot and author. He served in many battles in the Civil War, and had thrilling experiences as a prisoner of war, escaping no less than four times. He is author of A Man Without a Memory; The Last Three Soldiers; The Three Prisoners.