SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR WRITTEN REVIEW

ON PART I.

1. State five uses that may be made of interrogation, and illustrate each.

2. When successive questions begin with small letters, what does that punctuation tell us? Illustrate. 3. (No. 6.) How does the motive in the second question differ from that in the first?

4. May an interrogation ever be expressed with a falling inflection? When? Give two illustrations. 5. Of what use are the questions in No. 22?

6. What is a figurative interrogation? What advantage have direct questions over corresponding direct statements, in No. 23?

7. (No. 24.) Give the meaning of revile, pining, prowess, colleague, acquiescent, admonition, recreant.

ON PART II.

8. What is the emotional motive in Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 9 ?

9. What do the double exclamation points in No. 15 tell us?

10. (No. 23.) Paraphrase ¶1, sentence 3; ¶2,

sentence 2.

CHAPTER XII

STUDIES IN QUICK CHANGES

An oral reader is constantly confronted with the necessity of being able to interpret changes in thought, in sentiment, and in emotion. The changes may be gradual, or abrupt. It is with the more abrupt varieties that this chapter is to deal.

One of the simplest and most common forms of quick change is that presented by introduced or explained quotations; that is, the quotation with context. No. I illustrates this in its simplest form. No. 2 is a step more difficult, in that the quotation is broken into parts by the context, necessitating a second change, from the story-teller back to his character. No. 3 is one step more difficult still, in that it includes the story-teller and two characters. Eliminate the story-teller, and you have left the dialogue,—as we find it in lines 1642 of No. 23 or, more plainly, in No. 22.

Another variety of quick change is that produced by an abrupt break, in the thought, which may be caused by a change in the speaker's own line of thinking (No. 7); or by some unexpected happening, such as the entrance of the second speaker in No. 5, or the slip into the mud in No. 10. Shifting motives contribute to the changes in No. 9, while to shifting motives is added a continuous change of speaker in No. 19. A striking difference in character provokes the

change in No. 15, and decreasing distance is responsible for it in No. 17.

Abrupt changes in thought are generally accompanied by more or less of a change in emotion, and the change in emotion may vividly color the change in thought; but we also find breaks in unemotional thought. (See Nos. 45, 46, 47, pages 187, 188.)

Enter into the spirit and try to feel the emotions of the passages to be read; sense the complete meanings of sentences that are left incomplete; "be" the characters whose words you utter, and present their thoughts and feelings to your real or imagined hearers, these are the general instructions that cover the work of this chapter.

PEDAGOGICAL INTRODUCTION

Many pupils will read line 1 of No. 1, "Give us a song, the soldiers cried," as though but one speaker were represented. The teaching point in this chapter regarding such selections as Nos. 1, 2, and 3 is to train the pupils to recognize the parts of such selections, and to read them as separate parts presented by different parties to different people. Freedom with the text, and a little care and questioning on the part of the teacher will accomplish this with pleasing results. The "stage setting " needs to be plainly laid out.

"In No. 1, you must take the place of how many parties?" becomes the question. Ans. Of two, — the soldiers and the story-teller.

When you are the story-teller, to whom will you speak? Ans. To my hearers, — you (the teacher) and the class.

When you are the soldiers, to whom will you speak? Ans. To my (imagined) hearers.

Where will you locate them? Suggestion: The soldiers' hearers and the story-teller's hearers cannot be the same; therefore they must be imagined in different directions. Neither can the soldiers and story-teller occupy the same spot. This does not mean that the reader must move about. He need only locate conditions with his glance. To his hearers, the person who looks at them will be the story-teller, and anything that person says will be interpreted as the story-teller's words. The person who looks and speaks in the other direction will be the soldiers, and, correspondingly, whatever that person says will be attributed to the soldiers. Hearers have imagination as well as readers, and as they trace the reader's glances they will imagine behind each a different speaker, though the reader occupies one spot upon the schoolroom floor.

It is unnecessary to state that some selections admit of more impersonation than others; for instance, more is warranted in No. 3 than in Nos. 1 and 2.

The principle underlying the interpretation of the various forms of dialogue, which necessitates successive and clean-cut changes from the thought and manner of one character to another, advances from No. I in successive steps. Conversational dialogue between two persons, unaccompanied by descriptive context, is hardly a step more difficult. Instead of the reader becoming the story-teller, he becomes, in turn, the second character. One difference, however, will exist: If the dialogue is between James and John, John will usually speak to James, and James to John, - neither of whom

should be in exactly the position of the class. Pupils, as a rule, are quick in seeing how it should be done.

Let a and b represent two people facing front: Pupils readily see that when a talks to b, he would look toward his left, and when b talks to a, he would look toward his right, and that when a reader takes the part of a or b, he must do as they do; but to see is not to do, for doing takes familiarity with the text, a vivid imagination, an alert memory, and considerable practice, for pupils will " forget to do it even when they know that it should be done and know how to do it. The cause of the forgetting, however, is that the conditions are not vividly outlined in the mind.

Mr. Clark, in "How to Teach Reading in the Public Schools," illustrates most lucidly how such changes as those in No. 5 may occur:

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Suppose," he says, you were very busy studying your reading lesson, and you were just about to read aloud a sentence like this:

There's a good time coming, boys,

A good time coming!

But when you came to the second 'good,' let us suppose somebody knocks at the door and you say, 'Come in.' What has happened in your reading? You have broken off one thought suddenly and another has come in its place. Let us see how such a sentence would look :

There's a good time coming, boys,

A good time Come in."

Now the point to be noted is that the new thought has no connection with the old one and must be read independently of it. Here again the pupil's imagina