Higher Lessons in English Part 88

LESSON 164.

a.n.a.lYSIS OF SUBJECTS.

+Direction+.--_Prepare the framework of a theme on each of these subjects_:--

1. The Gulf Stream.

2. A Descent into a Whirlpool.

3. What are Books Good for?

LESSON 165.

HOW TO WRITE A THEME.

+I. Choose a Subject+.--Choose your subject long before you are to write.

Avoid a full, round term like _Patriotism_ or _Duty_; take a fragment of it; as, _How can a Boy be Patriotic?_ or _Duties which we Schoolmates owe Each Other_. The subject should be on your level, should be interesting and suggestive to you, and should instantly start in your mind many trains of thought.

+II. Acc.u.mulate the Material+.--Begin to think about your subject. Turn it over in your mind in leisure moments, and, as thoughts flash upon you, jot them down in your blank-book. If any of these seem broad enough for the main points, or heads, indicate this. Talk with no one on the subject, and read nothing on it, till you have thought yourself empty; and even then you should note down what the conversation or reading suggests, rather than what you have heard or read.

+III. Construct a Framework+.--Before writing hunt through your material for the main points, or heads. See to what general truths or thoughts these jottings and those jottings point. Perhaps this or that thought, as it stands, includes enough to serve as a head. Be sure, at any rate, that by brooding over your material, and by further thinking upon the subject, you get at all the general thoughts into which, as it seems to you, the subject should be a.n.a.lyzed. Study these points carefully. See that no two overlap each other, that no one appears twice, that no one has been raised to the dignity of a head which should stand under some head, and that no one is irrelevant. Study now to find the natural order in which these points should stand. Let no point, to the clear understanding of which some other point is necessary, precede that other. If developing all the points would make your theme too long, study to see what points you can omit without abrupt break or essential loss.

+IV. Write+.--Give your whole attention to your work as you write, and other thoughts will occur to you, and better ways of putting the thoughts already noted down. In expanding the main points into paragraphs, be sure that everything falls under its appropriate head. Cast out irrelevant matter. Do not strain after effect or strive to seem wiser than you are.

Use familiar words, and place these, your phrases, and your clauses, where they will make your thought the clearest. As occasion calls, change from the usual order to the transposed, and let sentences, simple, complex, and compound, long and short, stand shoulder to shoulder in the paragraph.

Express yourself easily--only now and then putting your thought forcibly and with feeling. Let a fresh image here and there relieve the uniformity of plain language. One sentence should follow another without abrupt break; and, if continuative of it, adversative to it, or an inference from it, and the hearer needs to be advised of this, let it swing into position on the hinge of a fitting connective. Of course, your sentences must pa.s.s rigid muster in syntax; and you must look sharply to the spelling, to the use of capital letters, and to punctuation.

+V. Attend to the Mechanical Execution+.--Keep your pages clean, and let your handwriting be clear. On the left of the page leave a margin of an inch for corrections. Do not write on the fourth page; if you exceed three pages, use another sheet. When the writing is done, double the lower half of the sheet over the upper, and fold through the middle; then bring the top down to the middle and fold again. Bring the right-hand end toward you, and across the top write your name and the date. This superscription will be at the top of the fourth page, at the right-hand corner, and at right angles to the ruled lines.

TO THE TEACHER.--Question the pupils closely upon every point in this Lesson.

Additional Subjects for Themes.

1. Apples and Nuts.

2. A Pleasant Evening.

3. My Walk to School.

4. Pluck.

5. School Friends.h.i.+ps.

6. When my s.h.i.+p Comes In.

7. Ancient and Modern Warfare.

8. The View from my Window.

9. Homes without Hands.

10. I Can.

11. My Friend Jack.

12. John Chinaman.

13. Irish Characters.

14. Robin Hood.

15. A Visit to Olympus.

16. Monday Morning.

17. My Native Town.

18. Over the Sea.

19. Up in a Balloon.

20. Queer People.

21. Our Minister.

22. A Plea for Puss.

23. Castles in Spain.

24. Young America.

25. Black Diamonds.

26. Mosquitoes.

27. A Day in the Woods.

28. A Boy's Trials.

29. The Yankee.

30. Robinson Crusoe.

31. Street Arabs.

32. Legerdemain.

33. Our Neighborhood.

34. Examinations.

35. Theatre-going.

36. Donkeys.

37. The Southern Negro.

38. A Rainy Sat.u.r.day.

39. The Early Bird Catches the Worm.

40. Spring Sports 41. How Horatius Kept the Bridge.

42. Jack Frost 43. My First Sea Voyage.

44. Monkeys.

45. Grandmothers.

46. The Boy of the Story Book.

47. Famous Streets.

48. Pigeons.

49. Jack and Gill.

50. Make Haste Slowly.

51. Commerce.

52. The s.h.i.+p of the Desert.

53. Winter Sports.

54. A Visit to Neptune.

55. Whiskers.

56. Gypsies.

57. Cities of the Dead.

58. Street Cries.

59. The World Owes me A Living.

60. Politeness.

61. Cleanliness Akin to G.o.dliness.

62. Fighting Windmills.

63. Along the Docks.

64. Maple Sugar.

65. Umbrellas.

66. A Girl's Trials.

67. A Spider's Web.