Craig,
Unless you have taught average students in high school (or younger  
grades), I think you should rethink your stance. Don't just trust me  
on this.  Maybe others who are on this list will chime in: Is  
teaching struggling writers to consider varying their sentence start  
is a helpful strategy?  If you were intimately familiar with that  
type of student writing, you would know that I am not exaggerating  
just how robotic their essays can be.

When I cover parallel structure in AP and honors classes, we talk  
about the difference between purposeful repetition (emphasis, humor,  
known-new, hooks, etc.) and repetition born by uninspired, lazy writing.



On May 18, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:

> Susan,
>    If I saw the same writing, I might very well agree that change is
> needed, but I wouldn't use "sentence variety" as a motivation. I'm  
> sure
> we can find many instances where good writers maintain subjects for
> longer stretches than that. The last time this came up on the list, I
> was teaching Frost's "Acquainted With the Night" and observed that ALL
> the sentences in that poem begin with "I have." Look closely at  
> Obama's
> acclaimed speech on race, and you'll see many instances of sentence
> openers repeated many times. I kn ow that because my grammar class
> worked on a passage as an optional final.
>    Francis Christensen deals with many of these issues in "Notes  
> toward a
> new Rhetoric" in an essay called "Sentence Openers." (Among other
> things, he reports in his samples that 8.75% of sentences in  
> expository
> writing for professional writers start with the fanboy  
> conjunctions. In
> fiction, it was 4.55%. He called it a sign of "a mature style.") The
> essay is largely an argument against calls for unique sentence openers
> for purposes of variety.
>    He ends the essay in this way: "What we need is a rhetorical  
> theory of
> the sentence that will not merely combine the ideas of primer
> sentences, but will generate new ideas. In such a rhetoric, sentence
> elements would not be managed arbitrarily for the sake of secondary
> concerns such as variety. They would be treated functionally and the
> variety--and its opposite, parallelism and balance--allowed to grow
> from the materials and the effort to communicate them to the reader."
>    since Ed brought up the issue, I would add that he found about  
> 28.5% of
> sentences in professional expository writing open with adverbials. The
> number is smaller (20%) for fiction. There is great  variability,
> though, byu author. The highest he found was for Rachel Carson's "The
> Sea Around Us", 79/200, almost 40%. The most common subject in  
> fiction,
> by the way, is a pronoun.
>
> Craig>
>
> Craig,
>>
>> Varying sentence starts and known-new are different concepts.
>> Students should do both.  You have nicely analyzed my writing, but
>> your analysis is irrelevant to my point.
>>
>> My students start their sentences with "He" five times in a row.  Or
>> "There is" or "It is" five times in a row.
>>
>>
>> On May 17, 2009, at 7:13 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>
>>> Susan,
>>>    I honestly didn't get the point. But let me try again to
>>> describe your
>>> own writing. "We" brings you and I into focus. "a teacher" is the
>>> subject of the subordinate clause that starts sentence two. "I" is
>>> main
>>> clause subject. "That" refers back to the previous two sentences
>>> and is
>>> hardly "stylistic" in its choice. Do you start the second paragraph
>>> with "but" to prove a point? It seems a very good example of what I
>>> was
>>> talking about earlier. "A teacher" heads that sentence, a carryover
>>> from the previous paragraph and very much a given. Students then  
>>> come
>>> into play, with "they" in the subordinate clause subject slots. "A
>>> teacher" is again the subject of the next sentence. "I" is the  
>>> subject
>>> of the next two sentences, and "they" (standing in for students)  
>>> ends
>>> the paragraph. You are doing what I am talking about, making the
>>> starts
>>> of your sentences "given", even repeating subjects ("a teacher",
>>> "they", "I")to build coherence. In almost every case, there is  
>>> nothing
>>> about the subject itself that calls attention. It's "given", with
>>> attention on the new information to follow.
>>>     If you are speaking/writing about your own understandings (your
>>> surprise at what I believe, what you have noticed, your  
>>> intentions and
>>> expectations), then "I" is the natural choice of subject. The "new"
>>> information comes in the second part of the sentences. I suspect  
>>> that
>>> the sentences in the third paragraph are short and clipped  
>>> because you
>>> want them to sound simple, but the "I" subjects don't pose a  
>>> problem.
>>>    I do not vary my subjects. If anything, I work hard to keep a
>>> topic in
>>> focus for longer stretches of text, something I'm told the computer
>>> assessments are designed to pick up as a sign of sophistication.
>>>    Inexperienced writers jump topics (and subjects) much too
>>> quickly, and
>>> it's not unusual for them to say they have been taught to do that.
>>> (Notice how "Inexperienced writers" is followed by "them" and
>>> "they" in
>>> the above compound sentence. "It's" is a dummy subject. "They" also
>>> starts the sentence to come.) They may be naturually coherent, but
>>> have
>>> been advised against following those instincts when they write.
>>>    If you pick up a collection of award winning essays, you'll find
>>> the
>>> point verified essay after essay. Good writers repeat. They sustain
>>> subjects for long stretches, building in new information as they go.
>>> You also seem to do that when you write, at least in your recent  
>>> post.
>>>    I always spend time with classes looking at exactly this  
>>> coherence
>>> building in effective texts. I underline the subjects in a
>>> paragraph of
>>> student writing just to direct attention to how quickly a topic is
>>> shifting in their text. They see it right away and adjust.
>>>    Our advice should be based on observations about how meaning
>>> happens
>>> and on how effective writing works.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 16, 2009, at 9:20 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>>>> You don't help students by giving them
>>>>> a false description of language because you believe they aren't
>>>>> capable
>>>>> of the truth.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Maybe we don't actually disagree.  If a teacher actually told her
>>>> students that good writers never start sentences with the word
>>>> "because" or an essay that doesn't have a thesis at the end of the
>>>> first paragraph is wrong and an example of bad writing, then I am
>>>> with you.  That is false information.
>>>>
>>>> But a teacher who tells her students that they can only write in
>>>> pencil, or that they must show their work, or that their essay must
>>>> have 5 paragraphs is not giving them false information.  Should a
>>>> teacher clarify that the rule about "because" is only for this  
>>>> class
>>>> and that when they are older they may break this rule?  Yes.  I  
>>>> think
>>>> that probably does happen.  I think it is too much for some  
>>>> students
>>>> to process, and what they retain is just the rule itself.
>>>>
>>>>> "Vary sentence starts" would be another example of bad advice.
>>>>
>>>> I am surprise that you believe this.  I notice you vary your  
>>>> sentence
>>>> starts.  I do too.  I would only break that rule to prove a  
>>>> point.  I
>>>> hope I have proved it.  I am not sure if I have.  I hope you  
>>>> will let
>>>> me know.
>>>>
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