The study of rhetorical principles in the first year should be confined to the consideration of the simpler principles of sentence and paragraph construction. In connection with the study of grammatical construction of sentences, the violation of the principles of sentence unity and sentence coherence in the pupils’ written work will offer opportunity for enlarging upon the application of these principles. If, in the first year, pupils can be taught to express simple ideas in sentences the parts of which are logically connected, much will have been accomplished. In paragraph construction unity and coherence must also be emphasized; that is, the pupils should be taught that the paragraph consists of a series of closely related sentences developing a single topic. The unity of the paragraph as emphasized by the part of the definition referring to the single topic, and the principle of coherence, as brought out by the idea of a series of related sentences, constitute the important points regarding paragraph construction to be developed in the first year.
The simplest principles of narration, such as the choice, order, and connection of incidents, may be emphasized and developed in the pupils’ composition work. Examples of the application of these principles will be noted constantly in the short stories read in class. During the second semester the elementary principles of description can be developed from the reading, and pupils can be led to add a descriptive element to their narrative themes, or even to write short descriptive themes. After studying the descriptive methods used in the portrayal of a character or scene in the story read in class, the pupils may very naturally be encouraged to write descriptions of persons or places with which they are familiar. The knowledge and application of these principles of composition, thoroughly mastered, is all the rhetoric that is necessary for the first year.
4. Theme Writing
In the first year one or two short themes a week will give sufficient practice in composition. A short theme should consist of one well-rounded paragraph of about 150 words. The one-paragraph theme of this length has several advantages. First, the pupil is taught from the beginning of his high school composition work to regard the paragraph as a unit of some length, which may be complete in itself. Second, the pupil usually has enough ideas for a short theme, and can present them simply and directly without writing to fill space, as he sometimes must do when longer themes are required. Third, a teacher can correct these short single page themes in less time, and yet see clearly the pupil’s faults, for he is likely to make the characteristic errors as evident in one page as in three or four. If the teacher has time to correct carefully two short themes a week, one of these may be prepared outside the class room, and the other may be written during part of one of the recitation periods. This plan gives the pupil practice in carefully prepared written work for the writing of which he has plenty of time, and also in writing rapidly in class when he has time to prepare but a single draft of his theme.
As in all composition work, these themes must be promptly and carefully corrected by the teacher; and the errors, as has already been pointed out, should be indicated by signs and abbreviations so that the pupil may have the benefit of correcting his mistakes. This correction by the pupil may be done either by rewriting the theme or by revising it and making corrections neatly between the lines, or in some other convenient place. In either case, the work should be returned to the teacher so that he may glance over the original and rewritten forms, or the original as revised, and may see whether the errors have been corrected and the changes properly made.
In the first year the conferences of teacher and pupil on composition work are of great importance. By talking over the work, the teacher can do much towards encouraging a pupil who becomes disheartened because of the difficulties in expressing his ideas in writing. In these conferences, also, the teacher can learn much concerning the pupil’s interests and character, and by sympathy and insight can be as helpful to the excellent pupil as to the mediocre or poor one.
5. Reading
The selection of suitable masterpieces for reading and study in the first year must be made with particular care, since the pupils’ attitude toward the reading and study of literature is often influenced for some time by their first impressions. As the purpose of the reading is not only to have the pupils understand what they read by teaching them to read carefully and accurately, but also to interest them in reading good literature, it is desirable to begin on material that does not present too many difficulties. The length of the selection is also an important element. The piece of literature must not be so long that interest in it flags or that the pupil can not grasp it in its entirety and study it as a unit. Short stories, tales, and narrative and descriptive sketches combine more of the desired elements than other forms of literature. Prose narratives of this type also make possible the close and effective correlation of the reading and composition, the importance of which has already been emphasized. Among the short stories and sketches that have been used successfully in the first year and that may be taken as typical are Hawthorne’s “Twice Told Tales”, Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and “Legend of Sleepy Hollow”, Holmes’ “My Hunt After the Captain”, Warner’s “A-Hunting of the Deer”, Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Mythology and folk tales have also been tried with considerable success in the first semester of the first year; the available selections include Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book”, Church’s “The Story of the Iliad” and “The Story of the Odyssey”, Peabody’s “Old Greek Folk Stories”, Bryant’s translations of the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” and Palmer’s translation of the “Odyssey”.
The advantages of using prose for reading and study in the first year in preference to poetry or the poetical drama, are important ones. In the first place since it is desirable to teach pupils to get the whole thought contained in what they read, it is undoubtedly best to begin with those forms in which ideas are expressed in the usual order, which, of course, is that of prose rather than that of poetry or the poetical drama. The training in following and grasping in their entirety the expressed thoughts of others as they appear in the simplest logical order of prose should be one of the first aims of the first year reading. In the second place poetic inversions and figurative expressions increase so greatly the pupils’ difficulties in understanding what they read, that at the beginning of the course it makes too great a task of that which should be a source of interest and pleasure. To pass over these difficulties and emphasize simply the story or description in the study of poetry is to encourage the bad habit of careless, inaccurate reading. If the pupil is taught to understand fully the prose that he reads in the first year, his progress in reading poetry in the following years will be much more rapid. These advantages together with close correlation possible between the study of prose and the theory and practice of composition should determine the choice of reading for the first year.
What has already been said in regard to the reading in general (p. [23]) applies particularly to the first year work.