4O METHODS IN TEACHING 



is true, and mechanical processes are drilled and drilled upon 

 with little or no thought behind them, and less possibility 

 for its development. 



The nature of the mistakes made indicates the kind of 

 drills needed, probably by the majority of the class. In- 

 deed, almost every error in this paper is suggestive of class 

 work, rather than individual correction; while it would be 

 almost labor lost simply to write corrections on the compo- 

 sition. The errors are not careless, they are the result of 

 growth, and they have deep, underlying reasons which must 

 be laid bare to the child and drilled out of his use. Some 

 of them are indications of the most necessary grammar 

 work ; some show the needed help in rhetorical lines. Gen- 

 erally speaking, they are lack of agreement between pro- 

 nouns and their antecedents ; lack of continuity in the tenses 

 of the verbs; occasional disagreements of number between 

 verbs and their subjects; punctuation lags behind the sen- 

 tence structure, for semicolons are needed in several places, 

 and a number of constructions with the comma called for by 

 the sentences are evidently unknown to the pupil ; the para- 

 graph sense is rather weak. 



These are all rather mature points for sixth grade pupils, 

 and they are undoubtedly just the ones that are being pre- 

 sented in the class drills as preparatory to direct instruction 

 in them later. 



That which it is important to note is the clearness with 

 which the child's production points out the next steps that 

 are desirable in instruction. If this is a typical paper, the 

 class drills are easily seen. 



