Review of Eliphalet Oram Lyte’s GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION FOR COMMON SCHOOLS [1886].

Review of Eliphalet Oram Lyte’s GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION FOR COMMON SCHOOLS [1886].

Lyte, Eliphalet Oram. GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION FOR COMMON SCHOOLS. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1886.

In his preface to GRAMMAR AND COMPOSITION FOR COMMON SCHOOLS, Lyte declares that his text is designed for “progressive teachers” (iii). He lists 15 points on how his text will “arrest the attention” of these teachers. Some of these points include (point one the combining) of grammar and composition in one text-book. The clearness and simplicity of definitions (point 3). Point 4, the use of ‘inductive lessons’—“The principle , Use the inductive method to discover the truth, the deductive method to apply it… (iv).” Point 14 explains the use of “ ‘Language Tables,’ and exercises in correcting errors of speech (iv).

In reviewing this text I found that its grammatical examples were quite clear and well organized. This text may serve modern composition teachers as a source of alterative exercises. The text uses an innovative technique for diagramming sentences with different font sizes to emphasize grammatical distinctions. In the composition section there is a useful example for students of how keeping a diary of observances can be used to writing a composition (241). The primary exercise for practicing composition is letter writing. Lyte explains his reasoning in having many letter writing exercises, “prominence is given to letter-writing, as the written composition of most persons is mainly in the form of letters (iii).” In addition to these practical benefits, Lytes text also offers modern readers the historical curiosity of his business writing section. The text discusses the writing of Promissory notes, Due-Bills, Drafts and Checks. The section on business writing makes the reader aware of the importance hand written letters and documents use to have in the everyday dealings. For example, checks as many of the other above documents in the 1880’s apparently were not a printed out form, but rather took the form of short written letters authorizing a specified bank to transfer money from one of its holders to the person the money is owed. Banks apparently relied heavily on matching an individual’s signature, and knowing the individuals involved in the transaction, rather than using account numbers.

Review of Alfred M. Hitchcock’s THE NEW PRACTICE BOOK IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION [1926]

Hitchcock, Alfred M. THE NEW PRACTICE BOOK IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1926. [1914]. 447 pp.
Alfred M. Hitchcock’s THE NEW PRACTICE BOOK IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION was designed as a high school English textbook. It is easy to confuse the work of author, and Hartford Public high school teacher, Alfred M. Hitchcock, as that of the famous film director Alfred J. Hitchcock. In fact a number of blog and wiki editors have done. This confusion occurs because of the similarity of the author’s name, it is easy to confuse Aflred M. Hitchcock’s work, with that of the famous director, because Alfred M. Hitchcock teaches through the strong use of descriptive visual imagery, and through twelve illustrations (four in color), to stimulate student writing. As such Hithchcock’s text comes close to being a visual rhetoric, (a text that examines the persuasive power of images).
Hitchcock’s text appears to operate on the philosophy that it is best to encourage students feel comfortable writing, and once they are comfortable writing then to hone in on improving grammar skills. Hitchcock understands the power of capturing his students’ imaginations. His introduction starts by bring up the image of the headless horseman of Scott’s Ivanhoe. His essay questions ask students to debate non-traditional question that require imagination such as whether there is life on mars. He invites students to become art critics giving them the opportunity to express themselves by critique model paintings. He gives his students the opportunity to comment on famous paintings and to critique model student essays that are written at the high school level with common high school errors. Student comments are encouraged through writing assignments and oral debate assignments in the text. The oral assignments in the book are particularly valuable for stimulating student participation. While Hitchcock’s text is remarkably more engaging than other student composition books of this time, one area in which the book that needs improvement is that no answers are provided for the student exercises. While the text captivates its readers’ imaginations, it holds back students who want to learn the material independently without the assistance of the instructor.
Overall, Hitchcock’s THE NEW PRACTICE BOOK IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION is an innovative work especially considering that Hitchcock composed it in the early 1900’s. This text may serve modern teaching applications as a model for composition teachers who seek to engage students through visual and mythical imagery. ---Samuel Gordon Paley

Review of Robert M. DeWitt’s WEBSTER'S PRACTICAL LETTER WRITER [1866.]

Review of Robert M. DeWitt’s WEBSTER'S PRACTICAL LETTER WRITER [1866.]

De Witt, Robert M. WEBSTER'S PRACTICAL LETTER WRITER; CONTAINING GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR WRITING; ALSO MODEL LETTERS: FAMILY LETTERS, CHILDRENS LETTERS, LETTERS OF FRIENDSHIP, LETTERS OF SYMPATHY, LOVE LETTERS, SOLDIERS’ LETTERS, LETTERS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN, LETTERS OF DISTINGUISHED WOMEN, LETTERS OF DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS, BUSINESS LETTERS, LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION, AND MODEL NOTES OF INVITATION. TOGETHER WITH BIBLE QUOTATIONS, CHOICE PROSE SENTIMENTS, SELECT POETICAL QUOTATIONS; ALSO, A, COPIOUS DICTIONARY OF SYNONYMS; ALL THE LATIN, FRENCH, SPANISH AND ITALIAN WORDS AND PHRASES USUALLY MET WITH; A FULL LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, MOTTOES OF THE STATES, AND A MODEL OF PRINTERS’ PROOF CORRECTIONS. New York: DeWitt, 1866. [192 pp.]

De Witt’s WEBSTER'S PRACTICAL LETTER WRITER, uses the name of Daniel Webster to enhance his text’s credibility. Ultimately, De Witt’s text lives up to the credibility that is due to Webster’s name. At the core of this text is a collection of actual model letters designed for readers of the nineteenth century to in corresponding with friends and family during significant life events. While the letters are entertaining from a historical perspective, they are also refreshing because each model letter comes from the actual correspondence of different peoples. Because different authors have written each model-letter, each letter contains its own sense of tones and individual linguistic patterns. In examining this text for modern teaching applications, it is important to recognize that for many modern students the art of letter writing is something alien. When communicating through text, many students are familiar only with text messaging and e-mail. These mediums of communication are often more curt, and more immediate than what students will encounter when studying the letters of De Witt’s text. Students can learn much from these letters about writing clearly, establishing an empathetic tone with readers, and with art of developing a narrative story to make a point.
De Witt’s fifteen-page introduction to letter writing may also prove valuable. The text helps place the importance of the nineteenth century letter carrier in context, “the importance of the messenger who brings our missives of love, life and death, of joy, ruin or gossip…” (De Witt 18). Curiously enough, the author also raises ergonomic issues of letter writing that seem very similar to health advice on how to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome.

The position in which you sit when writing is very important. If the body is bent or contracted or contracted, it is not only very inelegant, but it is also injurious to health. Sit erect; let both arms rest equally on the desk or table; let your paper lie before you, slightly to the right; hold your pen steadily and firmly, and guide in lightly over your paper (De Witt 21).

For the writing instructor planning a lesson on letter writing, this volume is worthy of review; its letters will provide students with valid examples of clarity of language, mastery of tone, and the persuasive use of practical narrative storytelling.---Samuel Gordon Paley

Review of John Goldsbury and William Russell’s THE AMERICAN COMMON SCHOOL-GRAMMAR

Goldsbury, John and William Russell. THE AMERICAN COMMON-SCHOOL READER AND SPEAKER: BEING A SELECTION OF PIECES IN PROSE AND VERSE WITH RULES FOR READING AND SPEAKING. Boston: Tappan, Whittmore and Mason, 1844. 432pp.

Goldsbury and Russell’s rhetoric opens by declaring its purpose. “The design of this work is, to furnish a text-book for the systematic teaching of reading and declamation (ix).” While the text provides numerous reading selections worthy of discussion, the true strength of this volume is its lessons on elocution. In this modern age of blogs, and online classes, the art and practice of effective speaking is often lost for many students. True, many colleges offer a course on public speaking, but these college courses are not as comprehensive as this nineteenth century text. The text emphasis the following ten qualities is spoken presentation:

1. Good ‘Quality of Voice;
2. Due Quantity of loudness;
3. Distinct Articulation;
4. Correct Pronunciation;
5. True Time;
6. Appropriate Pause;
7. Right Emphasis;
8. Correct ‘Inflections’;
9. Just ‘Stress’;
10. ‘Expressive Tones’;
11. Appropriate ‘Modulation’ (Goldsbury and Russell 1).

For its discussion of elocution Goldsbury and Russell’s text would be valuable for any presenter, looking to improve his or her rhetorical qualities of voice. For teacher or composition and rhetoric, the book may serve as an inspiration for a mini-unit to raise student awareness of the study of its voice and its ability to increase a speaker’s clarity and persuasive power. ---Samuel Gordon Paley

Review of George J. Smith's LONGMANS ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Review of George J. Smith’s LONGMANS’ ENGLISH GRAMMAR [1901]

Smith, George J. LONGMANS’ ENGLISH GRAMMAR. New York: Longmans, Green & CO, 1901.
George Smith’s LONGMANS’ ENGLISH GRAMMAR is a simplified version of David Solmon’s LONGMANNS SCHOOL GRAMMAR. Smith describes his grammar as an “elementary grammar,” designed for students in grades 6 through 8. Smith approach to teaching in 1901 is quite different from the teaching philosophy embraced today by many in New England High Schools. Central to Smith’s teaching philosophy is the act of parasing. Parasing is an often-lost technique of teaching grammar that “means the telling of facts about the form and class of a word, and its relation to the other words in the sentence” (Smith 80). Parasing is a technique of teaching that today is seen in the teaching of inflexive languages such as Latin or German, where cases are identified such as the nominative, dative, and accusative cases.

Smith is very aware that his elementary grammar text is a technical approach to teaching English, and sees his approach as an alterative to failed untechnical approaches. Smith writes that “The reign of the notion that Grammar should be set aside for loose and untechnical ‘language lessons’ has been short lived (Smith vii). Smith’s text is valuable for the student of English language, and is refreshing when compared to the de-emphasis on technical grammar that seemed prevalent in high schools during the end of the 1990s. Smith sums up his argument for the technical approach well with a quote from John Stuart Mill.

John Stuart Mill says that the things we study in Grammar, ‘the distinctions
between various parts of speech, between the cases of nouns, the moods and
tenses of verbs, the functions of participles, are distinctions in though, not
merely in words’ (Mill as qtd. by Smith vii).

–Samuel Gordon Paley.

Review of Albert Le Roy Bartlett’s THE ESSENTIALS OF LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR

Bartlett, Albert Le Roy. THE ESSENTIALS OF LANGUAGE AND GRAMMAR [The Silver Series of Language Books]. New York: Silver, Burdett & Co. 1900. [1899]. 332pp.

Bartlett’s text emphasizes a student center approach to learning. In his introduction, Bartlett writes that, “Any text-book will fail of its highest service unless the wise questioning of the teacher, his tactful adaptation of its material of the condition of his pupils, and his sympathetic fidelity to the methods and spirit of the book, give it life and make it a moving influence” [Bartlett 3].

Bartlett’s text by modern standards appears aimed at high school students in grades eight through ten; although when originally written in 1899 it was probably geared towards students in grades six through eight. One of the books strengths is that Bartlett divides each of his lessons into short, easy to grasp sections. These divisions help not to overwhelm students who are learning new information.

Bartlett’s teaching techniques include having students memorize literary passages, and the introduction of literary texts to build student vocabulary, and develop student understandings of literary techniques. Bartlett’s early writing assignments emphasize practical writing such as a lesson in letter writing that is designed to get students writing in a familiar environment. From analyzing this text I have gained a new appreciation for the value of having students memorize short passages of text. Memorization exercises can help students develop discipline and develop there sense of language. I believe it is important however, when dealing with students of all ages not to require excessive memorization, because it can limit the time that students have to reflect on and engage other course related materials. By reflection I am referring here a creative process of reflection where students think freely abut materials, find personal connections with them, and discover new relationships with what they already know. ---Samuel Gordon Paley

Review: Scott and Denney's THE NEW COMPOSITION-RHETORIC

Review of Scott and Denney THE NEW COMPOSITION-RHETORIC

Scott, Fred N. and Joseph V. Denney. THE NEW RHETORIC-COMPOSITION. Norwood MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1911.

Scott and Denny’s text does not a grammar. The student in this text will not find a list of grammatical rules. Rather as the title suggests, the text focuses on Rhetoric as the theory of argument, and composition the practice of effectively applying rhetoric. The book fully engages the idea of the students putting the theory of rhetoric into practice. What is particularly valuable about this book is its extensive collection of rhetorical examples from 19th century American Literature and British Literature, and from mock student essays. Rhetorical examples are provided as used by writers such as Thoreau, Hawthorne, Emerson, in addition to Dickens and Shakespeare. The student of Scott and Denney’s text will be exposed to great literary works and historical essays. Also humorous are a few of the mock student essays dated subject matter. One such model essay, argues the future of airplanes from the 1911 perspective. This essay in serving as an effective demonstration of grouping arguments by cause and effect contains an argument, which states that:
A. Airplanes cannot take the place of passenger trains.
1. Their are too fragile.
2. Their are too many accidents.
3. Their carrying capacity is too limited.
4. There schedule would be too much disturbed by storms.
B. Airplanes would be of little use in war.
1. They cannot carry large guns.
2. They are easily destroyed by explosive shells.
These dated examples surprisingly may be more valuable as teaching tools today, because in the modern context they are quite humorous, and thus are perhaps more memorable. As a composition-rhetoric text, I would highly rank and recommend this almost century old text, as a source of support material for the teaching of advanced composition. ---Samuel Gordon Paley