Does anybody have handy the two or three sentences that form the context
for the notorious "harmful effect" statement in the 1963 Braddock,
Lloyd-Jones NCTE report?  Martha Kolln quoted it in her fine talk on "the
butterfly effect" at ATEG last month, but I didn't get it all down and now
I'm trying to save myself a trip to the library.
 
Also, would most ATEG-ers agree with the proposition that nonrestricted
participle phrases are more "writerly" than restrictive ones?  Would you
agree that, correctly used and punctuated (like this one!),  they are more
likely to indicate maturity in writing?
 
After some helpful advice from some people at ATEG last month, I am trying
to develop a good list of syntactic structures (and stylistic features)
that one might count as measures of maturity in writing.  Kellogg Hunt's
research  is helpful in this, of course, and so is George Dillon's
Constructing Texts, which Ed Vavra recommended in a recent newsletter.  At
ATEG, I learned about Katharine Perera's excellent 1984 book, Children's
Writing and Reading.  She has a very helpful chapter on differences
between speech and writing in which she suggests that maturity in writing
is signalled in part by the appearance of features and structures not
commonly found in speech.  Does anybody want to suggest items for a list
of such features and structures?
 
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                Michael Kischner
                North Seattle Community College
                9600 College Way North
                Seattle, WA 98103
 
                (206) 528-4540    FAX (206) 527 3784
                email [log in to unmask]
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