Writing
125
Stage 7
(read to the class)
(
to the teacher only. Read the following passage to your
class, slowly, several times. The pupils do not see this
passage. Then give out the questions below, in written form.
The groups do the composition orally. Finally, pupils write.)
About thirty years ago a scientist noticed the following
facts about yellow-fever. In the jungles of South America,
blue mosquitoes live in the tree-tops. Monkeys also live in
the same place. These monkeys suffer from yellow-fever.
The scientists therefore discovered
that blue mosquitoes
cause yellow-fever. In the jungles the disease passes from
the monkey to the mosquito. Then it passes from the
mosquito back to the monkey.
Man also catches the disease if he goes into the jungle.
This often happens when men cut down the trees. They
disturb the mosquitoes and the mosquitoes begin to bite
the men. Then the men return to the city. Now men pass
yellow-fever into the city mosquito. The city mosquito
passes it to other men. In this way yellow-fever passes
from the monkeys into the population of the city.
(given to the class)
(
to the pupil: Answer the following
questions to make a
composition similar to the one you have just heard read to you.
Divide your composition into paragraphs. Each question should
be answered with one sentence.)
When did a scientist notice the following facts about yellow-
fever?
In the jungles of South America, where do blue mosquitoes
live?
What animals also live in the same place?
From what disease do they suffer?
What did the scientists therefore discover?
In the jungles the disease passes from which animal to which
insect?
Then what happens?
What happens if man goes into the jungle?
Writing
126
This often happens when men do what?
What do they disturb, and what begins to bite the men?
Then where do the men go?
Now what do men pass into the city mosquito?
To whom does the city mosquito pass it?
In this way what passes from
the monkeys into the popula-
tion of the city?
In the first of these there are three sources of control used;
first the picture, then the student’s memory of the passage,
and finally the questions which are given to the pupils to
read, the answers to which enable the original passage to be
reconstructed. In this exercise a paragraph is provided which
is in part a description of
the situation in the picture, and
which is at approximately the appropriate level syntactically
for the class. Students therefore are being asked to respond to
a picture and describe it, to remember a piece of consecutive
prose, and to answer questions orally in their preparation.
In the second exercise, pupils are asked to read the passage
silently (this may be done more than once or once only,
depending on the teacher’s assessment of the class’s level),
and the passage is then taken away.
The students then have
to answer given questions from memory, but this time the
answers to the questions are grouped in paragraphs and the
answers may be combined together so that answers to several
questions may form one sentence. Students are again
remembering, but this time on the basis of their own reading,
and they again have question prompts in front of them.
In
the third exercise, a passage is again read to the class,
and again question prompts are given, but this time there is
no picture, as there was in the first example. The questions,
and the techniques for answering them, are more complex
than in the earlier examples.
Once again a combination of
memory and question prompts is used, but the demands
made on the student are greater.
These exercises represent stages 5, 6, and 7 of a 35-stage
course in writing, and the principles that they illustrate are
applicable to any writing situation. To use this sort of
exercise most fruitfully, the teacher
should aim to help pupils
so thoroughly that no one makes any significant mistakes in
the writing. How can this be achieved?
Writing
127
At first the teacher may ask individual pupils to do all or
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