Harvey's Elementary Grammar and Composition · Lesson 14 · Part 1: Part I: The elementary course

12. Composition: telling about pictures

Goal: Your child looks carefully at a picture and writes a few clear sentences about what is in it.

⏱ About 30 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, open to this lesson
  • Paper and a pencil (or a slate)

What's in the book

Lesson 14 is the first composition lesson: two pictures (children near a bird's nest, and a dog catching rats) with questions to answer orally and then in writing.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Review

    Ask: What is analysis? What are the principal elements?

  2. Look first

    Look at the first picture together for a full minute without talking. Then ask what your child noticed.

  3. Answer out loud

    Ask the book's questions:

    What do you see in this picture?

    What are the boy and the girl doing?

    Where is the bird's nest?

    The book says the first answer should begin with the words "I see." Let your child answer in full sentences.

  4. Write the answers

    The book's note says to answer orally first, then write the answers on slates or paper. Write the answers to the first picture's questions as a little paragraph.

  5. The second picture

    Do the same with the dog and the rats:

    What is the dog doing?

    Where do rats live?

    What harm do they do?

  6. Read it back

    The book says: Read what has been written. Let your child read their sentences aloud. Check capitals and end marks together.

  7. Use it today

    The book asks the teacher to choose other pictures and ask questions about them. Pick a picture from a book or magazine and describe it out loud in five sentences.

Afterwards

Keep using pictures for short compositions. The book suggests doing this until your child can write about a picture without help.

Tip

Praise the looking as much as the writing. Good composition starts with noticing details.

Answers to the book's problems

Answers will vary. Look for full sentences that describe what is really in the picture, each starting with a capital and ending with a period.

Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.

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