Literature in the Elementary SchoolMacClintock, Porter Lander
General
Literature in the Elementary School
MacClintock, Porter Lander
Literature -- Study and teaching
Paraphrasing is a process of doubtful value. It is never possible to
express the precise meaning or mood in other words, and in the case of
verse it serves to destroy the sense of inviolability of form that one
would desire to develop and deepen. The direction, "State the same
thought in other words," should never be given. To one delicately alive
to the value of words and the shades of thought, it is a mere
contradiction in terms. The same may be said of the practice of getting
the children to substitute synonyms; in literature, especially in
poetry, there can be no true synonyms, and no precisely synonymous
expressions.
Many pleasant experiments are to be made in connecting some of the
handwork of the youngest children with their literature. The attempt to
realize some of their images in actual stuff constitutes an artistic
experiment that has its literary reverberations, and helps to deepen
the association. Let them make a cloak for _Little Red Riding-Hood_, a
fairies' coach of a nut shell, a boat, a tent--or whatever little object
or property is imbedded in the story. Out of practically every story,
and out of many of the poems, they get an inspiration for a picture or a
bit of modeling. Such associations with literature are legitimate and
natural. This appears very clear when we reflect that we are hoping to
cultivate the taste and imagination of the children, and to teach them
to love human life, with all that this implies, as well as to drill them
in language, grammar, and writing.
It seems necessary to handle aspects of the problem of language and
writing in connection with literature in several different places, as we
come upon the topic from different points of view. As has been said
before, it is the duty of the teacher of literature, and of the lessons
in literature, to help along the work in the language arts. It is even
fair to assume that the children will take more interest in their
composition lessons, and will get more profit out of them, when they are
attached to something they have done in literature; but this is because
they get out of literature more impulse toward creation, and more
inspiration toward a beautiful and striking manner of expression. But
composition is not merely a medium of creative expression; it is a
means of plain communication, and should be developed in both directions
and from both sources. This means that the children should write in
connection with all their subjects, so that they do not, on the one
hand, associate "English" and writing with literature only, and do not,
on the other hand, run the risk of forming no style but a literary
style.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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