The Mother Tongue, Book I: Lessons in Speaking, Reading and Writing English · Secs. 233–234 · Part 1: Part First
70. A good long letter, and a review
Goal: Your child writes a long, newsy letter in answer to a friend and reviews the rules of quotation, possession, commas and kinds of sentences.
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- Paper and pencil (a notebook kept just for this book works well)
What's in the book
Section 233 is a long letter from Frank, at a new school in Herkimer, N. Y., to his cousin Robert, asking for a good long letter in reply. Section 234 is a review of all the rules and definitions since Section 101.
The lesson, step by step
Read Frank's letter
Read Section 233 aloud.
Now write me a good long letter.
Ask: How does Frank feel at his new school? What does he want to hear about?
Plan the reply
Your child pretends to be Robert. Make a quick list of what to tell Frank: school, home, the boys and girls he knows, something funny. And how to cheer him up.
Write it
Your child writes a reply of 10 to 15 sentences, in two or three paragraphs, answering Frank's questions.
Check it gently
Read it aloud. Did you answer what Frank asked? Did you say you miss him? Then check one rule from the review that your child often forgets.
Review (Section 234)
Read the rules on page 181 aloud together. For each, your child gives an example sentence aloud.
The name of a person addressed is set off by commas.
What a good result looks like
Example (written for this guide, not from the book):
Dear Frank,
Your letter came yesterday, and I read it twice. We all miss you here. The boys still talk about the day you caught the big pickerel. School is the same as ever, except that Miss Grant has given us a new speller.
On Saturday we went nutting in Hill's woods and filled two bags. ...
Write again soon. I like your letters.
Your old friend,
Robert.
Answers to the book's problems
Section 234 in short: quotations take quotation marks, a capital at the start, and a comma, question mark or exclamation point to separate them; titles are in quotation marks; ownership is shown with apostrophe and s (apostrophe only after a plural ending in s); commas set off the person addressed and separate items in a series; the hyphen joins the parts of a word broken at the end of a line; sentences are declarative, interrogative, imperative or exclamatory; words of strong feeling take the exclamation point; O is always a capital.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.