=Studying the picture.= Several days before the lesson is to be taken
up, the picture to be studied should be placed where every pupil can see
it.
First of all, the children should find out for themselves what is in the
picture. The questions accompanying the story of each picture are
intended to help them to do this.
=Language work.= The pupils should be encouraged in class to talk freely
and naturally. In this way the lesson becomes a language exercise in
which the pupils will gain in freedom of expression and in the ability
to form clear mental images.
If a lesson does not occupy the entire drawing period, the children
should be asked to retell the story of the picture.
=Dramatization and drawing.= Most of the stories told by the pictures
lend themselves readily to dramatization and, whenever practicable, such
stories should be acted out. The stories also offer numerous interesting
situations that may be used as subjects for drawing lessons.
=The review lesson.= The review lesson should cover all pictures and
artists studied throughout the year. At this time other pictures
available by the same artists should be on exhibition.
The review work may be conducted as a contest in which the pictures are
held up, one at a time, while the class writes the name of the picture
and the artist on slips of paper which have been prepared and numbered
for that purpose. One teacher who used this device surprised her class
by presenting those whose lists were correct with their choice of any of
the large-sized Perry pictures studied.
Many teachers, however, will prefer to use this time for composition
work, although the description of pictures is often given as an English
lesson. Pupils may write a description of their favorite picture. In
fact, the lessons can be made to correlate with history, geography,
English, spelling, reading, or nature study.
In any event the real purpose of the work is that the pupils shall
become so familiar with the pictures that they will recognize them as
old friends whenever and wherever they may see them.
It is hoped that acquaintance with the picture and the interest awakened
by its story will grow into a fuller appreciation and understanding of
the artist’s work. Thus the children will have many happy hours and will
learn to love the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything about
them.
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● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
text that was bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).