Ed just got this and is tired tonight, but will speak on the matter  
tomorrow.

On May 21, 2009, at 7:21 PM, Susan van Druten wrote:

> Craig, I just don't understand your logic.  You were asked to  
> evaluate two passages that contained the same content.  The first  
> had boring sentence starts and the second had variation.  You  
> admitted the second had "more flexibility" but then concluded that  
> it doesn't make it better and went on to speak for Ed that he  
> couldn't possibly believe the varying sentence starts made it better.
>
> That struck me as arrogantly dismissive.
>
> Do you have any proof that teaching students how to vary their  
> sentence starts compromises their ability to write with coherence?   
> It seems like such a  stretch  Varying a sentence start doesn't  
> force students to vary the subject.  If varying sentence starts  
> doesn't lead to incoherence, would you change your stance?  Or do  
> you have other concerns as well.
>
> Susan
>
> On May 20, 2009, at 9:55 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
>> Susan,
>>   I'm sorry if I come across as arrogantly dismissive. I don't mean  
>> to
>> be. I do believe that teaching students to vary sentence openings is
>> not a good idea, and I have given that a great deal of study and
>> thought.  I believe that the conventional advice to vary sentence
>> openings is not based on close observation of how language works in
>> effective texts. I'm not sure why you would say those points are
>> irrelevant. Asking students to vary sentence openings may have the
>> effect of pushing them further away from coherence--at best, a
>> distraction from more relevant choices.
>>   Here's a opening passage--chosen in part because I already have  
>> it in
>> an electronic file to copy from--from Leslie Silko's "Yellow woman".
>> It's a short story, so the sentence openings are more typical of
>> narrative than of a more expository text, but the sentence openings  
>> are
>> quite unremarkable, almost entirely pronouns. I hope we can base the
>> discussion on observations of effective writing, not on personal
>> preferences.
>>
>>  Yellow Woman    (Leslie Silko)
>>
>>    My thigh clung to his with dampness, and I watched the sun  
>> rising up
>> through the tamaracks and willows. The small brown water birds came  
>> to
>> the river and hopped across the mud, leaving brown scratches in the
>> alkali-white crust. They bathed in the river silently. I could hear
>> the water, almost at our feet where the narrow fast channel bubbled
>> and washed green ragged moss and fern leaves. I looked at him beside
>> me, rolled in the red blanket on the white river sand. I cleaned the
>> sand out of the cracks between my toes, squinting because the sun was
>> above the willow trees. I looked at him for the last time, sleeping  
>> on
>> the white river sand.
>>     I felt hungry and followed the river south the way we had come  
>> the
>> night before, following our footprints that were already blurred by
>> lizard tracks and bug trails. The horses were still lying down, and
>> the black one whinnied when he saw me but he did not get up—maybe it
>> was because the corral was made out of thick cedar branches and the
>> horse had not yet felt the sun like I had. I tried to look beyond the
>> pale red mesas to the pueblo. I knew it was there, even if I could
>> not see it, on the sandrock hill above the river, the same river that
>> moved past me now and had reflected the moon last night.
>>    The horse felt warm underneath me. He shook his head and pawed the
>> sand. The bay whinnied and leaned against the gate trying to follow,
>> and I remembered him asleep inside the red blanket beside the  
>> river. I
>> slid off the horse and tied him close to the other horse, I waked
>> north with the river again, and the white sand broke loose in
>> footprints over footprints.
>>    “Wake up.”
>>    He moved in the blanket and turned his face to me with his eyes  
>> still
>> closed. I knelt down to touch him.
>>    “I’m leaving.”
>>    He smiled now, eyes still closed. “You are coming with me,  
>> remember?”
>> He sat up now with his bare dark chest and belly in the sun.
>>    “Where?”
>>    “To my place.”
>>    “And will I come back?”
>>     He pulled his pants on. I walked away from him, feeling him  
>> behind me
>> and smelling the willows.
>>    “Yellow woman,” he said.
>>    I turned to face him. “Who are you?” I asked.
>>    He laughed and knelt on the low, sandy bank, washing his face in  
>> the
>> river. “Last night you guessed my name, and you knew why I had come.”
>>     I stared past him at the shallow moving water and tried to  
>> remember
>> the night, but I could only see the moon in the water and remember
>> his warmth around me.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> Craig
>> I sounded snarky in my last email.  I'm sorry for that.  But you
>>> really are arrogantly dismissive of something I teach my students as
>>> a mini-lesson but do not require them to do in their essays.  I have
>>> seen better writing from them, and it is annoying to have such  
>>> strong
>>> evidence be dismissed without much thought.  I do think you have not
>>> thought this through.
>>>
>>> Susan
>>>
>>>
>>> On May 20, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Susan van Druten wrote:
>>>
>>>> On May 20, 2009, at 1:09 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>>>> You can certainly make the judgment that Ed's version shows more
>>>>> flexibility on the part of the writer, but it doesn't make it a
>>>>> better essay,
>>>>
>>>> Craig, it's clearly better.  You offer no evidence for why it is
>>>> worse or even equal.  Own up, dude:  It is clearly better, but,
>>>> yes, it still sucks.  Your tower is showing.
>>>>
>>>> The rest of your argument is irrelevant.  You are preaching to the
>>>> choir.  We do know what makes a good essay.  We know that varying
>>>> sentence starts is not a panacea.
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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