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

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Literary Reports, Grammar Study, Themes, M.E. Tests Gerunds are used as nouns and participles are used as adjectives . . . thinks Jody Young while taking her first Minimum Essentials Test. By satis- factorily passing an M. E. Test each semester, the student shows that he has mastered the semester grammar study. 21

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English Department Requirements Include Term Papers. Dave Reinbold, Jim Maxson, and Wanda Ripple portray characters from the novel Les Miserable! as an English 8 hour-long. English students cultivated a better appreciation of lit- erature, skill in creative writing, and an understanding of logic and philosophy in their respective classes. Writing clear, cor- rect, varied sentences and paragraphs with an effective and diversified choice of words was stressed in the year's study. Seniors conquered poetry, drama, essays, and short stories through weekly reports and met the challenge of hour-longs and book reports on three assigned novels. Plays were drama- tized; poems were written; and essays, novels, short stories, and biographies were analyzed. Juniors faced Beowulf, Macbeth, and their research themes, while sophomores studied Julius Caesar, Our Town, and Silas Marner as major projects. Students gained a better appreciation for literature and a better control of the English language through the guidance of the seventeen English instructors. Composition study started with a single sentence and developed through study into a lengthy research paper. Extensive and intensive instruction and drill constituted grammar study. All classes prepared for the Minimum Essentials Test. Since students were a little nervous on the day of reckoning, they felt relieved when the day had finally passed. Many students had the opportunity to improve their reading skills by taking the developmental reading course. In- creasing their reading speed and improving their reading com- prehension and vocabulary were the main aims of the course. While several students read on the accelerators, Mrs. Evlyn Spray drills the remainder of the developmental reading class on vocabulary words. Be- sides rrying to increase his rate of reading and comprehension, each student adds to his vocabulary by learning twenty-five new words each week. 20

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Language Students Study Latin, French, German, Spanish fere ••■ ' Singing Christmas carols in another language presents an opportunity which French, Latin, and German students enjoy. Those students taking second year French presented a play entitled La Veille de Noel for the first-year French students. French students wrote short compositions in that lan- guage, which were then given to Spanish students who trans- lated them into Spanish. The writings were tape-recorded in both languages and then played back to both French and Spanish students. Spanish encyclopedias were used as references for stu- dents when they made written reports in the language, as short reports on various topics were often given- Second-year Latin students spent the first semester re- viewing old grammar and learning new constructions. Read- ing and translating the stories on the Argonauts and Caesar were done during the second semester. German students learned the language with the aid of recordings. After they became more familiar with German, they wrote letters to pen pals in Germany. In this way, they not only learned to use the language better but also learned about the customs and habits of the Germans. All students in the four courses received practice in the use of the languages by translating each respective language into English and English into each language. Since it is an irregular verb, its endings will differ from those of regular verbs, relates Mr. Fred Hellman to a Latin class. Dancing around Le Pere Noel, Greg Rozelle, during the French classes' presentation of La Veille de Noel, are three happy girls 22