Page 61 - 1916 February - To Dragma

1 4 0 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

letters to examine and compare, they became more interested in the
subject, and were anxious to correct their own mistakes when they
saw how much depended upon a carefully composed letter.

L E O T A K I R L I N , Tau ' 1 4 ,

Teacher of English, Marion, S. D.

A SYMPOSIUM I N ROMAN HISTORY

When we (my sophomores and I ) reached the beginning of the

Empire, I called a halt for a week's symposium. I have never had

a week i n which the children so enjoyed themselves. First, we drew

plans f o r a Roman house, w i t h atrium, peristyle, and furnishings.

Then we made a menu f o r a Roman dinner. (Great was the sur-
prise when the children learned that the Romans ate vegetable soup

and boiled onions!) On another day we learned what a Roman

wedding was like; and on still another we made a toga f r o m an extra

large sheet, and adorned the most Romanesque boy i n class w i t h

it.

I chose the dates of Augustus because Rome then was at her

highest degree of civilization. I used, as my inseparable companion,

Johnston's Private Life of the Romans. I t is a positive treasure

house—containing everything f r o m Roman architecture to hair orna-

ments and cosmetics. The illustrations are splendid.

M A R Y E . C H A S E , Gamma '09,

Teacher in Bozeman, Mont.

ORAL REPORTS ON SHORT STORIES

I have found that an effective way of interesting the pupils of
my class i n third year E n g l i s h is to have them present to the class
oral reports of short stories which they have read. I t is an ad-
vantage to the pupils to have these oral reports because they gain
self-confidence and make it their aim to give what they themselves
have found interesting. As the reports are not long, they are re-
quired to select essentials i n the story, thus enabling them to discern
between important and non-important things. They are required
to follow a given outline, dealing with author, characters, purpose,
plot, and style, which teaches them to analyze the short story form.

T h i s does not necessarily mean that no w r i t t e n reports are given,
as reports on books are w r i t t e n at stated intervals. I think, how-
ever, that there is more interest shown i n the oral reports, because
they find the task of w r i t i n g done away w i t h , and the entire class
enjoys listening to and commenting upon the work of each. A
final advantage is that they save the correcting of papers by the