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Show CHAPTER VI FIFTH AIM: THE SPEECH PARAGRAPH "Long years of careless reading have resulted in what we may call mental laziness. We read along (we are speaking now of silent an idea there, but reading), getting making no conscious effort to get the complete idea. And if the sentence is of considerable length he forgets the beginning of it before he gets to the end; and when he reads aloud, this choppiness mani fests itself in falling inflections at the end of almost every group. And the worst of it is not merely that the vocal expression is and the listener but that the faulty, confused, poor reading is a sure sign of the reader's to the failure grasp meaning." an idea here and . .. -So H. CLARK. Speech Paragraphing. Ideas are related, distinguished, con nected, and made into oral paragraphs. This is a more difficult problem than was our former step. To put ideas into exact value and relationship is the ability to make perspective in speech; it is the skill to round up, put together, and hold together similar ideas, and to disconnect dissimilar groups. To do this is to develop that subtle element of voice-melody. This step, in oral expression, corresponds to the analysis of sen tences made in the study of grammar. If the speech paragraph were taught in the grades-where it should be-there would be no need of drill in diagramming sentences. I t would be evident through the reading of- a sentence whether or not the pupil could diagram it. This aim should. train the reader to put together as graphically in reading as ideas and sentences are massed into para graphs on the written or printed page. Every idea is related in some particular way to every other idea, and one idea is always relatively more important than the associated ideas. The end of practice and drill in this aim should be to make clear through voice and body, exact relationship and differentiation. Study and practice in this step will be most effective if complex sentences are used. The instructor cannot go far wrong by choosing any selection from Longfellow, for this poet, though simple, in concept, is very complex in his construction. Grade children can87 |
