I think I may be the originator of the term "training wheels." I've
used it for years and have used the term several times over the years
on this listserv. So, whether someone actually used the term before I
did or not, let me take a crack at explaining what I meant by the term
when I used it.
Training wheels, in the literal sense, are something we attach to a
bicycle so that a young child learning to ride doesn't have to master
too many things at once--steering, peddling, braking, balancing, and
ringing the bell. To make the task simpler during the learning phase,
we put on training wheels, which eliminates the need for the child to
attend to one of the more demanding tasks: balancing. In teaching
young people to swim, we sometimes use a kick board to accomplish the
same purpose: the young swimmer doesn't have to think about what to do
with his or her arms or how to stay afloat and can, instead, focus on
learning how to kick.
So "training wheels" is (are?) a perfectly legitimate way of teaching
a complex skill.
And writing is certainly a complex skill. So many writing instructors
employ the equivalent of training wheels. We try to simplify the
apprentice writer's task by eliminating some of the many decisions
that might make his or her writing less successful. We tell student
some of the following:
• never use the pronoun "you" (to avoid point of view shifts)
• never start a sentence with "because" (to avoid fragments)
• paragraphs must have at least five (or some other number) of
paragraphs (to prevent underdeveloped paragraphs)
• always put the thesis statement as the last sentence in the first
paragraph (to insure the essay has a thesis)
• and, perhaps, vary sentence starters
I call these "training wheels" because like their literal counterpart,
they are intended to simplify a complex task so that other parts of
that task can be mastered before the more sophisticated entire task is
attempted. In each of these cases, I have reservations about whether
the "training wheels" strategy is a good idea or not, but of one thing
I am certain: at some point teachers have a responsibility to explain
that what was once presented as a rule to simpligy the task of writing
is really not a rule, just a temporary piece of advice to simplify the
learning process. Otherwise, I fear that what started as "training
wheels" will, at least in some students' minds, become regarded as an
actual rule about writing.
I do not, by the way, have anything against kick boards in swimming
classes or literal training wheels for youngsters learning to ride
bikes.
Peter Adams
Department of English
Community College Baltimore County
On May 28, 2009, at 10:15 PM, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:
>> Hurts, donut?
>
> Well, no, it "do nut", actually. (I know you're addressing Craig,
> but, since he was agreeing with me, I'm going to take a shot at
> answering this.)
>
> Grammar isn't training wheels. If you want a bicycle-riding
> analogy, I'd say grammar--especially as I've seen some of the real
> experts on this list practice it--is more like the physics of
> bicycle riding. Grammar describes the functioning of language, as
> physics describes the functioning of matter and energy. (That's not
> to say students shouldn't learn about grammar before the twelfth
> grade, by the way. Children riding bikes may not be ready to
> understand velocity and gravity scientifically, but it behooves them
> to have at least an intuitive sense of what velocity and gravity can
> do.)
>
> I don't think that everything that gets called "training wheels" in
> education is bad. On the contrary, "training wheels" are often used
> as an example of the important educational techniques called
> "scaffolding." In scaffolding, an instructor offers modeling, guided
> practice and finally independent practice to help a student master
> tasks in his or her "zone of proximal development" (ZPD)--Vygotsky's
> term for the level of skill just beyond what the student is already
> capable of by himself or herself. Research and intuition (mine and
> many others') seem to agree that scaffolding can be a good thing.
>
> But there's a difference between modeling and guided practice, which
> is what scaffolding usually refers to in education studies, and made-
> up rules, which are at least part of what "training wheels" has
> meant in this discussion. I think that a lot of us have noticed that
> students have internalized certain made-up rules without actually
> having internalized the underlying skills or principles that those
> "rules" were presumably supposed to scaffold. But if a college
> student avoids starting sentences with because but still writes
> sentence fragments--and yes, I have known such students--then I'm
> thinking that, yes, those training wheels did more harm than good.
>
> Speaking only for myself, I don't see anything wrong with modeling
> ways in which effective writers use sentence starters, guiding
> students in practicing these ways, and then expecting them to
> practice independently in their papers. That process looks to me
> like a good kind of "training wheels," or scaffolding. Ideally, I'd
> want to talk with students about why different kinds of sentence
> starters are effective or ineffective in different context, and how
> this is related to more fundamental issues of topicality and
> coherence. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to tell them students
> that using a large amount of sentence starter variation is a
> hallmark of good writers. That doesn't seem to be true, according to
> research that we've heard about in this conversation; it seems to be
> a made-up rule, and I think that's the wrong kind of "training
> wheels."
>
>
> Brian
>
>
>
> Brian O'Sullivan, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of English
> Director of the Writing Center
> St. Mary’s College of Maryland
> Montgomery Hall 50
> 18952 E. Fisher Rd.
> St. Mary’s City, Maryland
> 20686
> 240-895-4242
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of
> Susan van Druten
> Sent: Thu 5/28/2009 8:09 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: training wheels
>
> So weak writers suffer from training wheels?
>
> A lovely metaphor which I started and to which I subscribe.
> So...let'e be clear, what are all the training wheels you abhor?
> Sentence starts has been deemed damaging. Let's mix metaphors and
> open up the spigots. What else? What other tactics that are
> commonly found in writing texts do you find harmful?
>
> Have at it.
>
> But you do know what the biggest "training wheel" is, don't you?
>
> I'll give you a hint it has been condemned since the late 70's. Our
> district curriculum director won't allow us to purchase books with
> its name in the title. And (the dead give away) it's in the name of
> this listserv.
>
> Jenkies, how's that for irony?
>
> Hurts, donut?
>
>
>
> On May 28, 2009, at 10:52 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
>
> Brian,
> I just wanted to say that I find your contributions very
> thoughtful and helpful. I especially like the way you bring this
> back to the opening discussion, whether weaker writers needed
> 'training wheels". I would echo what I see as the core of your
> position: they do more harm than good.
>
> Craig
>
> O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:
>
> Thanks, Susan. Maybe I need to be more clear, too--I didn't
> mean that boring essays are a short-term problem; I meant that some
> solutions to the problem of boring essays are short term (or
> superficial) solutions. As I meant to imply, I read plenty of
> boring essays by college students(though I'm sure I read fewer, even
> as a percentage of my total haul of papers, than high school
> teachers read--just because my students' high school teachers have
> done a good job with them). I could come up with silly solutions to
> this problem--use a world from a funny vocabulary list every few
> lines, or write in rhyming couplets--which might amuse me (I have a
> dumb sense of humor) but would probably not make for more effective
> writing.
>
> Your solution, on the other hand, isn't silly--after all,
> good writers do include some variant sentence starts, even if it's
> only 25% of the time, and it's not outlandish to teach students how
> good writers go about doing this. I actually do not think that
> sentence starts and coherence are an either/or--you've made it clear
> that you teach coherence, and I don't see how that could be totally
> negated by the little time you spend teaching sentence start
> variation. At the same time, i would not in any way put coherence
> and sentence start variation on the same level. Coherence is ,
> pretty much by definition, a fundamental aspect of a reader's
> experience of a text. Sentence start variation is...not. Most of the
> time, if a revision with more varied sentence starts is better than
> the draft, that variation is probably an epiphenomenon of some more
> significant change--like improved coordination or subordination, or
> improved topic focus in general. If a student thinks that her revision
>
> is better is simply because she started her sentences in more
> various ways, she may understand what really made the revision
> better, and thus she may be less likely to transfer her learning to
> the next context and do even better in the future. And she may not
> be helped on the path to the (even) longer-term goal of greater
> syntactical maturity (as you put it) or greater rhetorical awareness
> and control (as I put it).
>
> I agree with you that our goal (or, one of our goals) is for
> our students to produce easy to read and pleasurable,
> informative reading--eventually. But not necessarily while
> they're in a particular class that we happen to be teaching.
> Sometimes, as a student experiments with more complex thoughts and
> expressions, that student's writing may have to get more convoluted
> before it gets clearer and more pleasureable. I wouldn't want to
> give the student advice that would privilege a clear and enjoyable
> product today over a more deliberate and effective writing process
> tomorrow.
>
> I guess my question for your student would be whether, and
> why, he or she really wanted to switch the focus of the second
> sentence of the revision from the Landon's perception to Jamie's
> condition. Was there a rhetorical purpose, other than simply
> variation, for switching from "he" to "she" as a subject, only to
> then switch back again? If so--and there could be such a purpose--
> great. If not, maybe this revision is one instance where sentence
> start variation and coherence really did conflict, and I would have
> favored coherence.
>
> Still, your student is revising and experimenting and
> certainly not learning a pointless, inflexible rule, like "every
> sentence must have a different subject." I don't think the
> different sides in this Great War of Sentence Starters are really
> all that far apart.
>
> Brian
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf
> of Susan van Druten
> Sent: Wed 5/27/2009 7:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions
>
> Thanks, Brian, for some insight. Maybe I need to be more
> clear about
> how much (how little) I ask students to vary their sentence
> starts.
> Usually, it occurs when I walk around the room as they are
> writing.
> I'll read over a shoulder and notice lots of similar sentence
> starts
> (which are not interesting parallel structure). I'll mention
> it to
> them and they'll read it it back and notice how it sounds to
> them.
> They don't want to sound "head-thumpingly boring to read."
> So they
> get it, and they change it on their own, or they'll ask for
> advice.
>
> "Head-thumpingly boring" essays are short-term problems?
>
> Really??! Really. Really??!
>
> Bad writing is a long-term problem, period. Bad essays are
> problems
> for a high school teacher who has to read 150. They are
> problems for
> a college instructor who doesn't have to read 150. The
> amount one
> must read is irrelevant. There should be no difference of
> opinion
> between high school or college instructor: if an essay is
> boring to
> a high school teacher, it should be boring to a college
> instructor.
> The boring might come from uninspired sentence starts or from
> chaotic
> coherence problems. It doesn't matter what the problem is.
> We can
> all spot the problem and help our students with whatever is
> causing it.
>
> This argument has now shifted to a fallacious either-or. It
> is simply
> not true that we must pit sentence start variation against
> coherence. Both are important.
>
> Class size is irrelevant. An exposure to more writing does
> not make
> one unable to distinguish easier reading from head-thumping
> reading.
> The goal is that our students produce easy to read and
> pleasurable,
> informative reading.
>
>
>
> Brian asks about my student's revision, "I'm curious;
> how might
> the passage's author respond to this kind of advice [show
> me how
> each sentence connects]?"
>
>
>
> Brian, that is good advice which often includes considering
> varying
> sentence starts. So I do have an answer of sorts. It's
> inconclusive
> (it is very hard to get students to revise). But here is her
> revision:
>
> Landon is comparing Jamie's weight to leaves falling. She
> has become
> so sick that she has lost a lot of weight, and he has really
> started
> to notice it. He had to support her as they stood there
> because she
> could barely hold herself up. He is not only realizing just
> her
> change in weight, but it really hits him at this point how
> much her
> leukemia has taken over her whole body and in such a short
> period of
> time. He realizes that she doesn't have that much longer.
>
> I have better writers than this. But it's all about taking a
> writer
> from where she is at and suggesting ideas that her writing
> shows she
> has not been considering.
>
> Susan
>
> On May 27, 2009, at 8:21 AM, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:
>
>
>
> It seems like one of the differences of opinion here is
> what a
> teacher should do with students who "do not have a mature
> style,"
> as Susan puts it. Should we give them "training
> wheels" (aka,
> "triage" them, give them "bandaids," etc.) to make their
> writing
> more presentable in the short term, or should we try to
> set them on
> a path towards developing a more mature style in the long
> run?
> These goals don't *necessarily* conflict, but do they
> "sometimes*
> conflict? And when do they do conflict, which should take
> priority?
> I say that they do sometimes conflict, and that when they
> do, long-
> term improvement should take priority.
>
> I believe Susan when she says that her young and
> struggling writers
> hand in more readable prose when they follow her advice
> to "change
> up your sentence starters." But I also agree with Craig
> that having
> been trained this way may make it hard for college
> writers to think
> in terms of coherence and see the value of repetition.
> If, as I
> think, both Susan and Craig are right, then the student's
> short
> term gain (i.e., papers that their high school teachers
> found a
> little easier and head-thumpingly boring to read) may not
> have been
> worth their long-term loss (i.e, greater difficulty in
> ultimately
> attaining a mature style).
>
> Easy for me to say. As a college teacher, I have smaller
> class
> sizes and fewer classes than Susan, and, by and large, I
> probably
> read fewer of those head-thumpingly boring papers. (Was
> that "good"
> repetition or "bad," by the way?)But college teachers,
> too, face
> tradeoffs between immediate improvement of a paper and
> long-term
> improvement of a writer. For example, I've had plenty of
> students--
> often but not always English Language Learners--who can
> write
> simple sentence clearly but get very tangled up when they
> start
> combining clauses. I'm sure none of us would encourage
> students
> like that to only write in simple sentences. We put up
> with reading
> convoluted sentences so that students can practice, and
> eventually
> improve at, coordination and subordination.
>
> "Vary sentences starters," I rush to admit, is not nearly
> such bad
> advice as "only use simple sentences" would be! The
> similarity, in
> my mind, is that neither piece of advice acts as a
> scaffold to help
> eventually students reach "mature" levels of rhetorical
> awareness
> and control.
>
> At least I'm probably getting Susan and John to agree;
> they're
> probably both thinking that I'm being too abstract and
> talking
> about what should be, not what is! So I'll say how I
> might respond
> to the student who wrote the "Landon says Jamie..."
> paragraph:
>
> "[Student], when I read this, I feel like each thought is
> separate
> from the next, and there's nothing to show me how they
> connect,
> which is more important than the other, which depends on
> which. One
> of the ways that writers fix that kind of problem for
> their readers
> is by combining sentences. Before next class, can you try
> a few
> different ways of combining those seven sentences into
> three to
> five sentences, and tell me which way you like best and
> why? If you
> take another look at that "sentence combining" chapter we
> read,
> that will make this easier."
>
> The results would be less predictible then if I just told
> the
> student to very sentence starters, but at least I'd be
> asking the
> student to realize that he or she has stylistic choices
> to make and
> to think about the effects of those choices on readers. And
> consistently asking students to do that can make a
> difference over
> the long one.
>
> But Susan, I defer to you as an expert on pre-college
> writers, and
> I'm curious; how might the passage's author respond to
> this kind of
> advice?
>
> Brian
>
>
> Brian O'Sullivan, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of English
> Director of the Writing Center
> St. Mary's College of Maryland
> Montgomery Hall 50
> 18952 E. Fisher Rd.
> St. Mary's City, Maryland
> 20686
> 240-895-4242
>
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