ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE 89 



of authors and of characters, are made more prominent 

 than in the lower grades. Narrations and descriptions are 

 studied carefully in order to acquire an apt and forceful 

 style. Individuality of treatment, without eccentricity or 

 absurdity, is always encouraged. 

 A seventh grade teacher 1 says of her work : 

 The aim throughout the year is to gain power in origi- 

 nality and readiness of expression, and to foster a literary 

 appreciation of good authors. During the first part of the 

 year careful reviews are made of the punctuation and 

 capitalization studied in lower grades. Reproduction exer- 

 cises are continued, material being drawn principally from 

 the history. During the early part of the term much of the 

 written work consists of reproductions, as they furnish 

 opportunities for putting into practice the principles that 

 are to be impressed. The mind, not being busy with original 

 thought, is left free to exercise care in grammatical con- 

 structions, punctuation, paragraphing, sentence formation. 

 These exercises tend to make the accuracies of writing more 

 and more mechanical, a condition to which teacher and 

 pupils are consciously trying to attain. At the same time, 

 the pupil is gaining power of expression and a certain bal- 

 ance and proportion in style from studying the writings of 

 great authors. During some of the literature periods there 

 is paraphrasing, for the purpose of learning to make clear 

 the thought of the author with little repetition of his lan- 

 guage. Such exercises are both oral and written. There 

 are also some book reviews during the year ; they are prac- 

 tice in giving in concise form the thoughts of an author, and 

 they also train the pupil in forming and expressing an 

 1 Miss Ella Daly. 



