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TELLING ORIGINAL STORIES

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prepare original stories, or stories that they make up from the suggestions given them. No child should tell the story of the blind men and the elephant except as a last resort.

The class exercise must not be spent merely in the telling of the stories, as the children have prepared them. Every story told should be commented upon. The teacher should make her comments, and the children should be encouraged, taught, to make theirs. These comments, for the most part, should be in the form of helpful, encouraging, discriminating, appreciative, constructive criticism. It is not enough to remark that a story is "good," or "interesting," or "flat"; the definite things about it that are good, that are interesting, should be pointed out; the reason for its flatness should be made clear.

In the teacher's criticism, particularly with beginners, the pointing out and the approval of good features should always predominate over the attention given to defects. This is a principle whose application is by no means limited to story telling. Children should also be taught to criticize in this way. When this is done, criticism will cease to suggest faultfinding and censure.

In this, and in similar exercises in story telling, the teacher must keep ever in mind—and keep also in her pupils' minds - the main purpose in the telling of each story and in the critical comments made upon it. That purpose is this: To help the teller

and every other pupil to tell a better story, the next time he tries, than he otherwise could. In other words, every story told should be made to yield some definite suggestion that will be helpful to every one in the telling of stories. That every

story told may be made to serve this purpose fully, the teacher must begin now, at the very outset, to treat the matter in the way here suggested. Nothing approaches nearer to mere time killing than an exercise in which one pupil after another tells a story, while all the other pupils sit passively by except as here and there one may be occasionally aroused by something striking or of unusual interest in the story. Every child who is not telling the story should be trained to listen attentively, gardless of the interest or dullness of the story,—to think positively and discriminatingly, so that when the story is ended he can make definite, critical comments on the performance. To develop this power and habit in children, the teacher's consistent example alone will hardly be sufficient, but it is indispensable; it will do more than all else combined to effect the desired result.

IX (14) Reading a Story in a Picture

(Picture of children at garden wall, p. 15)

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To stimulate and at the same time to direct the constructive imagination, to loose the individual powers of invention, to encourage real and orderly

READING A STORY IN A PICTURE

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thought in every young pupil, nothing surpasses a suitable picture rightly used. To use a picture effectively for this purpose requires teaching skill and insight of the highest order, especially in the beginning. Here the teacher's task is that of teaching children to read picture stories, not to describe pictures.

A story picture contains a story just as truly as a printed narrative does. But like the printed page, the picture reveals its story only to those who know how to read. Reading pictures is an art to be taught and learned just as truly as reading printed language is an art to be taught and learned. Naming the objects in a picture, or telling what one sees in it, or describing it, is not reading the story that it tells any more than the naming at random of the words in a written narrative or describing the way the narrative looks on the page, is reading the story that the narrative contains, and pupils must not be permitted, much less encouraged, to talk about story pictures in this way. They must be taught to read pictures.

How can this be done? First of all, the teacher must know, or learn, how to read pictures herself, how to read them expressively and with a touch of originality. If you are not accustomed to picture reading, you will need to make most thoughtful and careful preparation for these early lessons. In preparation for the lesson with the garden wall picture,

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see how many distinct stories you can read from

that picture.

Obviously, your interpretation of the center of interest in the picture will determine the heart, the essentials of the story; all else will be mere setting. The center of interest in the garden wall picture is just outside your range of vision. But the boy on the wall sees it. What does he see? What is he

pointing at? at? Is it a house on fire, a runaway horse, an automobile smash-up, a big ship on the sea, a brass band, a company of soldiers, a circus parade, an explosion, a race of some kind, foot, horse, boat, automobile,—a father or mother returning home after a long absence, a flying machine just alighting or just arising from the ground, a balloon landing, or what is it? Whatever you decide it is, that will determine the story that you will read from the picture. The setting, which includes the introduction and the conclusion, must be consistent with the heart of the story and with what the picture plainly shows. The whole story-introduction, heart, and conclusion should be brief and pointed.

Think out in some detail several stories that you might read from this picture. Tell or write out one or two of them. If you start with the assumption that the boy on the wall sees a circus parade, perhaps you will read a story from the picture something like the following:

READING A STORY IN A PICTURE

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THE CIRCUS PARADE

One morning in June, Tom, Ned, Mary, and Baby were playing in the garden. A ladder was leaning against the garden wall. Tom climbed to the top.

At once he cried, "Oh, I see a big circus parade! There is an elephant and a camel and a clown and ever so many horses! Hurry, come up

י!

Ned helped Baby and Mary to climb the ladder, and soon they were all seated on the wall.

The circus parade came nearer. It marched right by the garden. The children watched all the queer animals until they had passed.

"What a grand parade!" cried Tom. "Let us go in and ask mother to take us to the circus this afternoon."

Neither this story nor any other of the many possible stories which you have found the picture to contain is to be imposed or intruded on the children when you take up the study of the picture with them to teach them to read it. Your ample preparation should fit you at once to follow the lead of the hildren with confidence, and at the same time so to direct their thought that an orderly and consistent story will result.

Study with the children the questions in their book. Hold them always to the point to be brought out by any question or group of questions. Help the children to answer, skillfully suggest, and direct the answers to these questions, as may be necessary, but do not answer the questions for the children.

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