A pioneer school located in Harrisburg, Banner County, Nebraska

LITERATURE

LESSON TIME:  20 minutes

OBJECTIVES:  Students will learn of the ideals of the literature during the 1880-1900's and how the literature promoted values through teaching moralistic lessons.
Students will have an opportunity to recite prose and/or poetry.

  During the 1880's, most literature available to children was meant not to entertain but to instruct them in the values and morals of the time.  The Flowerfield teacher uses maxims, proverbs and morals throughout the day's instructions.

Read an appropriate selection from Aesop's Fables to the students and conduct a discussion.
Examples listed in guide: 

The Fox and the Stork
The Lion and the Mouse
The Crow and the Pitcher
The Dog and His Shadow

Students will be allowed to recite a previously memorized poem.

My Shadow
by Robert Louis Stevenson

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head,
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.