WRITING A STORY FROM AN OUTLINE

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encouraged to take the time that he needs to think out to his own satisfaction what he wishes to write. Pupils who cannot finish their stories in a single period should put aside their papers and continue it at a second or even, if necessary, a third period. The object is not the completion of the exercise, but the writing by the children of the best stories of which they are capable.

Every child should succeed in this exercise; every child should complete a connected story. The child's future work depends upon his success or failure at this point. If he succeeds now, and knows and feels that he succeeds, even though his production may be poor in itself, he will advance to the next step with courage and confidence and build. a second larger success on this first one. If he fails now, if he is allowed to leave the exercise without having completed a story, if he knows and feels that he has failed, he has the whole weight of this failure, in the shape of discouragement, dislike, and indifference, to handicap whatever efforts you may induce him to make in future. Always insist on success; never permit a failure. If anything like a failure occurs, do not allow it to be left as a failure; see that it is buried under a success.

Correcting papers.

If you are active, as already suggested, while pupils are writing, they can make most of the cor

rections necessary in their papers while they write. You can anticipate most of their errors and then see that they are corrected at the right time-before they are actually made.

It will do little good-probably will do positive harm for you to correct pupils' papers alone, hand them back to them, and require them to note the errors and corrections, and perhaps to rewrite their stories as corrected. Their greatest difficulty is in thinking clearly, in deciding exactly what they are going to say, and not primarily in the form of expression. True, confused thought or lack of thought will reveal itself in the expression; but merely correcting the expression on paper — with a child ten years of age will rarely help the child. You must get back to his real difficulty, you must personally, face to face with the child, make him think clearly; then he will write clearly. Correcting the child's written errors will improve the particular production; helping the child to think will insure better productions in future.

Children cannot write this story from memory. It was not the purpose of the oral lesson to enable them to do this. The purpose of that lesson was to prepare the pupils to think out the story, each one for himself, before writing; to think out exactly each sentence before beginning to write it. You are anticipating - and so best correcting-the errors that might later appear on their papers, when

"THE KING'S DREAM"

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you compel them to think before writing. Let the child who is prone to err tell you exactly what he proposes to write. Then let him answer to you these questions: (1) Where are you going to begin that paragraph? (2) Why? (3) With what kind of letter will you begin it? (4) Why? (5) What mark will you place after ? When you come around to that child again in a few moments, you can see at a glance whether he has done what he proposed to do. Probably his work will be correct; if not, a question will make him think and enable him to correct it.

Every moment of this patient, insistent, unremitting, close-range, detailed, and individual work with the children is being built into right habits of thought and expression, just as truly as the general effort to teach language to a class as a whole fosters the growth of carelessness and indifference. Individual pupils, not classes, learn to use language.

III (253). "The King's Dream"

In reading this story with the children, see that the various feelings of the king and his wise men, as well as the ideas, are adequately expressed. Let the children read it as a dialogue.

After the children have studied by themselves the questions on the story, ask them these and other questions that will bring out the full meaning of the story and prepare for its dramatization.

IV (256). Dramatizing the Story

If the children have been allowed from the beginning, as repeatedly directed, to assume more and more responsibility and to take the initiative increasingly in dramatizing, they should now be able to plan and carry out the dramatization of a simple story like this with very little help from the teacher. The preparation which the last lesson gave ought to enable them to try it with confidence.

To stimulate a little wholesome rivalry, divide your class into two groups. Let each group plan the dramatization, assigning parts. Every child can be used in some capacity, as soldier or wise man. When the groups are ready, let one after the other give the little play. Perhaps a few children will be reserved for an impartial audience, who will discuss, at the close, the relative merits of the two productions.

V (256). Oral Reproduction of the Story

Without further preparation the children should be able to tell this story. Work for brief, fluent, straightforward, thoughtful, expressive reproductions. A reproduction must not be allowed to degenerate into a mere test of memory, even largely word memory. A reproduction, like an original story, should be the result of active, discriminating thought appropriately expressed.

SUPPLEMENTARY WORK

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Supplementary Work

1. Tell the children the story below, The Two Doctors, which teaches the same lesson as The King's Dream. After a single telling let the children dramatize, if possible without aid or suggestion from you. Perhaps the same two groups that dramatized The King's Dream will take charge of this dramatization in rivalry.

THE TWO DOCTORS

Once upon a time a king was ill. He sent for the wisest two doctors in the land. They felt his pulse and looked at his tongue. Then the first doctor spoke.

"O king,” he said, "you do not exercise enough. You should give up your carriage and walk, and you should play games or work every day."

"What!" cried the angry king, " give up my carriage! Walk! Play games! Work! I will have none of your advice! Leave my court at once, and be thankful you take your head with you!" The second doctor said: "Your case is a very strange one, O king. Let me study it until to-morrow. Then I will tell you what must be done."

Next day the doctor returned. He gave the king a silver cup, a spade with a golden handle, and a ball.

"O king," he said, "a mile from your palace is a spring of magic water. Every morning before breakfast walk to this spring and fill the silver cup from its waters and drink. The magic water will soon make you well again.

"After breakfast take this magic spade and dig for one hour in the fairy glen back of your palace garden. If you will do this for one year, you will become very rich.

"In the afternoon take the ball I have given you (it is stuffed with magic medicine) into the court and toss it one hundred times