A SUGGESTED TECHNIQUE FOR THE PUBLIC SCHOOL PUBLISHING COMPANY BLOOMINGTON, ILLINOIS PREFACE The purpose of this volume is to lay the ground work for an English composition curriculum which will reach the actual expressional needs of the students as fully and as effectively as possible. In other words, the study seeks to apply the educational doctrine of pupil need to the problem of curriculum construction in the field of English expression. The principal steps by which it proceeds are: (1) the determination of general expressional needs through a study of the expressional activities characteristic of social experience, (2) an inquiry relative to the functional content of textbooks1 in order to discover the extent to which current texts may be expected to furnish definite materials for instruction in the expressional activities of life, and (3) an illustration of the use of activity analysis in determining the nature of the subject-matter which should be taught. These three steps involve three types of analysis: ( (1) conduct analysis (i. e., the analysis of general experience into its particular constituent activities), (2) content anlysis of textbooks, and (3) activity analysis (i. e., the analysis of a particular activity). The results of these analyses furnish the general plan for the construction of an English composition curriculum and the results of additional analytical studies now in process will be used to refine and particularize the plan by determining details of content necessary to effective instruction in each of the expressional activities. 1 The results of this inquiry into the nature of textbook content are reported in the Appendix. |