Page 39 - 1916 February - To Dragma

1 1 8 TO DRAG MA OF ALPHA 0 MICRON PI

I had many delightful visits in Porto Rican homes. Many o
the girls are beautiful, all are charming and hospitable and I am
happy to count them my friends. They were so anxious to have m
learn Spanish, yet they knew so much more E n g l i s h than I d i
Spanish that our conversations were usually carried on in my langu
age. T h e older members of the family, especially the mothers, know
very little English.

T h e two years that I spent i n Porto Rico seem to me to hav
been the best of my l i f e , every day brought new experiences, inter
esting and delightful.

There is a lure of the tropics f o r me, f o r , today, as I shive
i n this below-zero weather, I am filled w i t h an eager longing f o
that tropical island—

"Where the blazing dawn tints kindle,
Or the sun kissed rivers dwindle—
I n a land of fairy fantasies and dreams."

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING

COMPOSITION

ROBERTA WILLIAMS, O '08

Teacher in Chattanooga, Tenn.

I can't teach English grammar so that children don't hate i t .
B u t English composition! That's another story. For the sake of
those "high and far-off days" when I struggled for composition
subjects, I want to pass on the course I gave last year. M y w o r k
was w i t h children in the higher grades of the elementary school,
and while the suggestions I offer may not be new or unique, they
are like the tested and tried recipes—they w o r k !

F o r the first w r i t t e n work of the school year, I asked each p u p i l
to prepare a composition, and I gave only one direction i n regard
to i t , i . e., " D o the best you possibly can." T h e results of this work
I dated and filed. D u r i n g the last month of school, a f t e r previous
months of conscientious labor, I repeated this injunction, then placed
the two papers on exhibition together, in order to show the year's
progress. Rarely was there failure to show a decided improvement
i n neatness, in arrangement, in illustration, i n the mechanics of
composition, and—praise be!—in a greater variety of subjects. For
in place of " A Picnic" or " A Ball Game" which were almost
universal i n the first attempt, I f o u n d titles ranging f r o m " T h e
Panama Canal" to "Bird Houses."

I n teaching paragraphing during the early weeks, I f o u n d this
plan useful. Each pupil cut f r o m some magazine the picture of a