6.  The bulk of the teacher’s attention should be given neither to
        the few exceptionally able students nor to the few very poor
        pupils.  It is to the average normal boy and girl that the most
        of the questioning should be directed.  The brilliant student
        should be called on sufficiently to retain his interest and to
        set a standard of excellence for the class.  He should be given
        the most difficult of the assignments of outside work and if
        necessary an additional number of them.  As to the few pupils
        whom the teacher deems exceptionally poor, it may be said that
        the effect of questioning should never be to discourage the
        pupil who has made an honest effort at preparation.  During the
        early part of the course the efforts of the teacher may well be
        directed to asking the backward student questions to which he
        can make reasonably satisfactory answers.  By saving the student
        from the daily humiliation of failure before the class, and by
        tactfully encouraging him to greater effort, the teacher may
        shortly discover that the poor pupil is far from hopeless.

     7.  Do not allow your questions to consume a disproportionate amount
        of time with details.  Until very recently in all our history
        teaching, battles have been exalted to a place immeasurably
        greater than their importance.  We are coming to see that the
        fighting is one of the least important things in the war.  The
        causes and results, the financial, political, and social effects
        now absorb our attention.  One or two battles in a course may
        profitably be studied in detail, particularly in the history of
        our own country, but in the press of considerations far more
        interesting and vital, it is a waste of time to give more than a
        moment’s notice to the remainder.  Student descriptions of
        battles are bound to be stereotyped.  The ordinary textbook
        describes each of the thousand battles of the world in about the
        same fifty words.

     8.  Let some of the questions be directed towards cultivating the
        student’s powers of oral description.  History is not altogether
        a matter of analysis or generalization.  There can scarcely be
        assigned a lesson in history that does not contain events which
        lend themselves to dramatic description.  Their recital should be
        made the occasion of the student’s best efforts in this
        direction.  Let the pupils be taught to use adjectives and
        adverbs.  Break down the barrier of listlessness or fear or
        self-consciousness which keeps the student from rendering a
        graphic and thrilling account of great events.