South Side High School - Totem Yearbook (Fort Wayne, IN)

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Busy Archers Meet the Challenge of Themes, Working at special machines to improve their reading speed and comprehension are Sandy Miller, senior, and Ken Davis, junior, members of one of the developmental reading classes. 20

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Academics Progress through four decades has revised, changed, and improved South's curriculum, which present students with boundless opportunities for increased knowledge. The exchange of ideas through class discussions allows students to express themselves, absorb the opinions of others, and modify their own views as their education and experiences broaden. Implantine lessons upon the mind, homework teaches students self-discipline and offers them the chance to think for themselves. Tests, too, have an important place in academic life, for they not only correct the ideas of pupils but also reveal to teachers the weaknesses of texts and courses and thus enable them to revise their teaching methods. 19

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Hour-longs, ME.V Preparing for hour-long book reporrs; reading Ben Hur, The Scarlet Letter, and A Tale of Two Cities; and learning rhe fun- damenrals of creative writing provided English 8 seniors with a background for appreciation of good literature and the ele- ments of self-expression. True, the seniors were exhausted at the end of the year, but they knew they were well-prepared for college, a career in business, or any other profession which they might choose. For four long years, members of the English Department patiently worked to familiarize the student with such great books as Homer's Odyssey, works of Charles Dickens and George Ehot, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Macbeth, and our own American authors — Thoreau, Emerson, and Irving, representing only a few. Techniques of writing were stressed in the research paper; reports analyzing short stories, essays, plays, and poetry; and themes, which increased knowledge of sentence structure. The Minimum Essentials Test, class dramatizations, library work, logic and philosophy, and oral reports all played an im- portant part in the English program, which endeavors to broaden the student's view in the area of the Fine Arts. To English 6 students, the library is a familiar sight. Using index cards and periodicals, Betsy Adams prepares notes for her research theme. A model of the Globe Theater, popular in Shakespeare's time, is examined by Mr. Jack Morey and Marcia Larson during the study of Julius Ca sar.