Letter Writing

When It Should Begin

Writing may serve two purposes: it may record thoughts or it may convey them to others. For most of us the first is negligible. Here and there may be found a diary, treasured but never shown. Most of us write little for our own amusement. All of us write more or less often to friends. The little child tries hard to speak because he wants another to understand. Letter writing (or speaking to another by marks) should begin as soon as the necessary marks can be formed. Letter writing of a sort should find a place in the first grade.

Why Placed Here

The reason for this is two-fold. If the child sees an immediate use for his scrawls he will try the harder to do his best. Again, if he has written letters from the first they will seem a natural occupation. The man who writes but seldom feels it an arduous struggle. That must be an important event which is worth putting in a yearly letter. We want our children to write easily, which cannot be "without frequency; we want them to write interestingly, which cannot be if they are handicapped by the use of an unfamiliar medium. Frequency again.

Possibilities in First Grade

The mechanical difficulty in writing makes it impossible for small children to write long or freely. It is, therefore, better that occasions be chosen for which short messages are suitable and where the same wording may be used by all the children.

Suitable Occasions

Christmas and Valentine Day suggest themselves as most suitable. Thanksgiving Day programs could be used as a chance to write invitations were it not that the children need a little more time in school before beginning upon this work.

Method of Procedure

Since the sentence is the unit in reading, we are not asking too much of the children when we expect them to grasp the idea expressed in any one of the following letters. An Invitation

Dear Mamma

Santa is coming to school Friday. Won't you come?

Dear Mamma

Dear Santa Claus

VI

Acknowledgment

The form taken is the simplest possible, yet it embraces all the essentials of a letter. It shows to whom and by whom it is written and it conveys a message. Convenience and fashion dictate some additional frills. but they are unnecessary to the thought. It is better these little folks should understand the purpose of letter writing than that they should master the latest fad in the placing of date or address.

The chosen letter is placed upon the board and is first a reading lesson. Then it is carefully copied, with no change except in the signature and in the toy for which Santa is asked. Any teacher can take the time to give the individual help needed for these slight variations.

Don't mourn that the letter is so short. The characters scrawled by the children will fill a page far larger than the note paper used by their elders.

One important point about these letters is that each has a definite purpose. The invitations are to be delivered and, we hope, accepted. The greetings can be sent. The thought for a sick friend, as well as the acknowledgment of a gift, cannot begin too early.

Valentines

The valentines adorned with hearts or drawings need some short message. They are much simpler than the Christmas letter. "Be my Valentine," "To my Valentine," or "I love you," will be quite satisfactory to the mother or to the little friend to whom it may happen to be sent. Sometimes rather startling results are obtained. One little boy was working on his at home. He wanted "poetry," by which he meant two lines, for he saw those in the store windows had more ambitious messages than the form given them at school. His brother in the second grade undertook to help him. The valentine they proudly produced had on it:

To my beloved

In whom I am well pleased.

For the Second Grade

1

and places this part corerctly. He asks for what he pleases and needs less aid in his words. The first year's work gives an idea of what is to be done, the next year brings the power to do it easily.

Additions to Form and Content

The first and second years combine naturally. So do the third and fourth. The emphasis, as always, should fall upon the thought, but a slight elaboration in form is desirable. The intricacies of the placing of address and date in various kinds of letters should not be mentioned. Some one arrangement should be chosen which can be employed in all writing which is attempted by the children.

522 N. Main St. Bowling Green, O. March 21, 1917

This form placed at the left, perfectly even and employing

the least possible punctuation, is accepted on good authority, and is probably as satisfactory as any of the half dozen which might be adopted.

The conclusion offers a slightly more difficult problem. "Your little friend" is frequently chosen. It is suitable for children, but "Your friend" from an older person hints at illeracy. "Yours truly" is fit for nothing but business letters and is now being discarded by some firms. "Sincerely yours" is unobjectionable in almost any case. The child of ability may be encouraged to select different endings as he reads various letters, but for a stock phrase, 'Sincerely yours" is perhaps the best.

It gives me great pleasure to send you my signature because I want the boys and girls who read St. Nicholas to know how blind children write. I suppose some of them wonder how we keep the lines so straight, so I will try to tell them how it is done. We have a grooved board which we put between the pages when we wish to write. These grooves are the same as lines and when we have pressed the paper into them with the blunt end of our pencil it is very easy to keep the words even. The small letters are made in the grooves while the long ones extend above and below them. We guide the pencil with the right hand and feel with the finger of the left hand to see that we shape and space the letters correctly. It is very difficult at first to form them correctly, but if we keep on trying it gradually becomes easier, and after a great deal of practice we can write to our friends. Then we are very, very happy. Some time they may visit a school for the blind. If they do I am sure they will wish to see the pupils write.

Your little friend,

HELEN KELLER

Go over this with the children. What is she telling in the first sentence? Why she wrote. What is the next sentence? What is she writing about? What comes next? The things she used. What does the next division explain? How she used those materials. When she has told all about what she used and how she did it, what does she tell us? What happens after awhile?.

These questions are rough and incomplete, but they suggest the method by which the child can be led to analyze the content. Put a hasty outline on the board.

Why written

About what
Material used

Manner of using
Result

Then put away the letter. If books or mimeographed copies are obtainable it is well to have used this for a reading lesson; if not, the teacher must have read the letter to the children.

Discuss what school activities might furnish material for a similar letter. One class wanted to explain how they kept the rows in the garden straight. How they laced their booklets together would serve equally well.

The purpose of this letter is to give information about Alaska. It is excellent in that it gives a feeling of actuality to read about the country in so personal a form as a letter. The execution is faulty. The letter is a made one. No boy would say, "Our house is an odd-looking mound of stone." If he had lived there all his life he would think the structure the natural form for a house to take. He would not say, "It has two openings in it, a door and a window;" he would write "I hear your house has ever so many doors and windows. Why do you leave so many

holes in it?"

I quote this letter to emphasize the preliminary steps which are necessary before children attempt to write descriptions. The expository form is easier. The child has gone through the process himself. It is probable that the difficulties he has encountered have impressed themselves deeply enough to make their telling fairly simple. In composition books Exposition follows Description. This certainly should not be the order with little children. if the difficulty of the operations determine the placing.

Description is difficult because to the child (as to the adult) the unusual is the conspicuous, and the child's experience is so limited that it is impossible for him to estimate rightly the important familiar and the unimportant novel.

Only after the most careful analysis in the class should description be attempted.

We want opportunities for the writing of real letters which are actually sent. Here is one which Ann Mary Livingstone wrote to Hans Christian Andersen:

ULNA COTTAGE, HAMILTON, SCOTLAND, 1st Jan., 1869 Dear Hans Andersen I do like your fairy tales so much that I would like to go and see you, but I cannot do that, so I thought I would write to you. When papa comes from Africa, I will ask him to take me to see you. My favorite stories in one book are, "The Goloshes of Fortune," "The Snow Queen," and some others. My papa's name is Dr. Livingstone. I will say good-bye to you and a Happy New Year. I am your affectionate little friend,

Dear Sir: Eleven weeks and two days ago I heard you did not know I was living. I am. I live in the Yourkburg Female Orphan Asylum, and have been living here for nine years and four months and almost a week. If you had known I was living all these years and had not made yourself acquainted with me, I would not now write to you, but I heard, by accident, you did not know I had been born, so I am writing to tell you I was. It happened in Natchez, Miss. I know that much, but little more except my father was an actor. I worship his memory. My mother was named Mary Alden, and you are her brother. If you would like to know more, and will write and ask me, I think you will learn something of interest. Not about me, but there are other people in this world.

Respectfully,

MARY CARY

This brings in the hint of a story. It is, of course, a manufactured letter, written as part of a story, but we

can use it with our children to suggest that we all like 'something doing." This reminds me of a bit of psychology. No, it is not from a text-book. It is in a story, where the cleverest bits of psychology are found.

One of the first tasks in composition assigned to Rebecca was the writing of a letter. She suggested that:

A letter from Rebecca Randall to her sister Hannah at Sunnybrook Farm, or to her aunt Jane at the brick house, Riverboro, is so dull and stupid, if it is a real letter; but if I could make believe I was a different girl altogether, and write to somebody who would be sure to understand everything I said, I could make it nicer."

"Very well; I think that's a delightful plan," said Miss Maxwell, "and whom will you suppose yourself to be?"

"I like heiresses very much," replied Rebecca contemplatively. "Of course I never saw one, but interesting things are always happening to heiresses, especially to the golden-haired kind. My heiress wouldn't be vain and haughty like the wicked sisters in Cinderella; she would be noble and generous. She would give up a grand school in Boston because she wanted to come out here where her father lived when he was a boy long before he made his fortune. The father is dead now, and she has a guardian, the best and kindest man in the world; he is rather old, of course, and sometimes very quiet and grave, but sometimes, when he is happy, he is full of fun, and then Evelyn is not afraid of him."

Let the children have this freedom which Rebecca wishes. "Suppose you are a little boy or girl in a certain favorite story. Write a letter telling what happened at some definite time and place." The results are almost uniformly good. In higher grades some amusing compositions have resulted. A composition class had for the first assignment the writing of a letter to refuse a position which had been offered for the fall. The following day they were told to date the next letter six months later and explain to a friend why they wished they had taken the position which they had refused. One girl, who had declined a position as teacher, giving as the reason that she was to be married that summer, was much embarrassed by the sequel.

Consciousness of Power

The freedom from all self-consciousness which results from imagining one's self another gives an independence which should impart life and animation to the letter. Say to the pupil, "This is interesting." The lesson has been assigned solely to make the chance for this remark. So long as all his letters are dull the child does not feel any particular shame at his failure. It's the nature of the beast. What's the use of bothering when letters are just naturally dry reading? But when once a letter has been interesting, he knows the medium of expression has not been at fault. He can do well, therefore he should be blamed for failure.

The Final Aim

To produce satisfactory bits of fiction is not enough. If any part of the English course is practical this should be. Read to the entire class some letter which they will enjoy. "Did anything happen to you which you thought about when you heard this?" "What is it?" Never was there a class from which some response could not be elicited. There should be plenty of active class discussion. Our writers tend to collect at literary centers because there is a quickening effect in the contact with other minds. Even if the letter has aroused no memories in the child his classmates' experiences will. In some of them he may have had a part.

Various Aspects of Letter Writing

There is a formal side to the work, there are a few matters of usage to be learned and practiced, but the real end and aim of the matter is to train in selection and expression of the personal data, thoughts, or experiences, which may be interesting to others.

doing? Where are these children? Why do you think so? Does the teacher seem to be talking? To whom is she talking? Who is just learning to read? Why do you think so? Where is her finger? Why does she lean against the teacher? Who teaches you to read? Where is the teacher looking? Which is the oldest girl in the reading class? What is she doing? Which little girl is not interested in the lesson? Where is she looking? Do you, like the little girl in the picture, ever come to words in your reading that you do not know? Who is looking over another's shoulder? Which child looks as if she knew the hard word? Who will read next in turn? Why does this child twist her apron? What are the two little children next to the teacher doing? Can they read? Why are they Why are they not in the class? Do you think they may be visitors? Who may be their older sisters? How are these little tots dressed? What are all of the other girls wearing on their heads? Do girls wear such caps in this country? The teacher has a broad collar. Where do you find other collars? What kind of shoes do these children wear? Whom do you see in another part of the room? What are these scholars doing? Are the desks like yours? How is this school different from yours? Are there many windows in the room? Is the room like this schoolroom? What can you see on the wall? Where do you think this school may be?

The Story of the Picture

In a little village of Brittany, France, there is just such a school as the one we see in this picture. We know this is quite true because the artist who painted the picture lives near it and has painted many pictures of the school and

Geoffroy

In this part of Brittany the children still wear the queer bonnets or caps, wide collars, and wooden shoes. The children are almost invariably dressed in blue - the dull light blue so much worn by the French peasantry. Thick woolen kings, knit by frugal mothers, cover the feet, and must be welcome protection for the tender feet against the wooden sabots (sa bō'). Many of the children have come a long way to school, for the houses are scattered. The country has many hills and little rapid streams. It was in the great oak forests of this country that the Druid priests used to live and hold their mysterious meetings of weird ceremony and magic.

The little girl leaning against the teacher is just learning to read and points to each word as she pronounces it. She seems to have come to a word she does not know. The little girl holding her apron so tightly will read next and she wants to tell her - at least she looks as if she knew, and so does the little girl looking at the book over the child's shoulder. The little girl looking out of the window does not seem to be thinking of the story or of reading. What would happen should the teacher suddenly call upon her? The tallest girl may be reading to herself from a more advanced book, for in country schools pupils often read from different books. Sometimes all read in turn from the same book.

The two little children sitting beside the teacher are too young to wear the queer bonnets, or to sit on the high benches. They are content to sit close to the teacher, as little visitors, and watch and listen to the older ones.

What fun it would be to visit a school such as this, and to go with these children to their homes across the narrow (Continued on page 133)