Susan,
I'm surprised that you thought I was "railing" and had "strict anger." I was feeling pretty mellow, actually. I'm dubious about what I called "made-up rules"--and at times I even venture to be critical of them--but I do not hate them with the undying wrath that you seem to think you're picking up from me.
We do seem to agree that something that is sometimes called "training wheels" can be useful--but I think we define that "something" differently, and we may have different perspectives on the amount of damage that has been caused by misapplication of training wheels. I think that training wheels in teh form of scaffolding (modelling and guided practice of skills just at the edge of students' reach) can be grat, while training wheels in the form of made-up (or, to be more precise, unwarranted) rules can do more harm than good. (I would not, however, agree with you that teachers who misuse training wheels are "stupid." "Rigid" and "dogmatic," OK, but "stupid" seems over the top, don't you think?)
I didn't say that you personally teach students not to begin sentences with "because." My point was that, whoever is teaching this "rule," some students seem to believe in it for a long time without learning what it was presumably intended to teach (writing in complete sentences). These students get an unintended drawback of the training wheels without getting much of the intended benefit--so this is one instance of training wheels doing mroe harm than good. (Your point that professional writers use sentence fragment is true, of course. But I hope we can agree that "avoid sentence fragments," or "write in complete sentences," is not a made-up rule in quite the same way that something like "never start a sentence with 'because'" is a made-up rule. The former is a norm of effective writing, though it can be strategically and effectively deviated from; the latter is not even a norm.
Also, I wasn't "changing your argument"; I wasn't even characterizing your argument. (Actually, I avoided characterizing it, because it hasn't always been been completely clear to me; at one point, if I remember right, you quoted a handout that said that experienced writers vary their sentence starts 50% of the time, and I thought you were encouraging students to try to match that hallmark; but lately your more moderate position has become more evident.) Anyway, I didn't say that *you* "tell students that using a large amount of sentence starter variation is a hallmark of good writers"; I said that *I* would not want to tell students that. My point was that I wouldn't want to make "vary sentence structures often" a rule, which would be one kind of "training wheels," because I don't think such a rule is borne out by the practices of strong writers. But I wouldn't mind modelling the effective use of sentence straters and having students practice it, which is another kind of "training wheels," or scaffolding. What I'm describing may not really be very different from what you practice; I'll leave that for you to judge.
I think this conversation started, just about, when Craig said that he considered "vary sentence starters" an example of bad advice. As I now understand your argument, you might actually agree with Craig's statement, IF "very sentence structures" is interpreted as an absolute or near-absolute commandment. So I don't think the different sides of this conversation are as far apart as they may sometimes have seemed to be. They're just different enough to make things interesting.
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 11:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: training wheels
On May 28, 2009, at 9:15 PM, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:
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
I'm glad you to argue my point with me. Training wheels are helpful. They are a good thing if they are needed. They are a bad thing if a dogmatic instructor is too stupid too see that her student is trying to fly. Training wheels ARE made-up rules. The teacher who presents any "rule" as rigid and true is what you are railing against. However, under your strict anger against all "made-up" rules, a teacher who asks his students to write complete sentences is risking that his students will "internalize certain made-up rules without actually having internalized the underlying skills." Professional writers use fragments, after all.
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.
This is a strawman. I teach my students to write sentences beginning with "because" AND I teach them to try different sentence starts. If you have a student who writes unsuccessful fragments, you can't really blame training wheels because the biggest "training wheel" of them all is don't use sentence fragments! Clearly this student is falling off the bike with the training wheels still attached. You take those training wheels off and you will get more fragments--not fewer. That student needs to understand rules before she goes free-wheeling down a hill.
I wouldn't want to tell students that using a large amount of sentence starter variation is a hallmark of good writers.
Yeah, see, here's the problem. You have just changed my argument. Don't be doin' that no more, 'kay? It's gettin' boring. I have never advocated "a large amount" of different starts. What I have said is (barring those who have a rhetorical purpose) students who start five sentences in a row with the same start need to change up one or more more of them. If there is no rhetorical purpose to five sentences that start with "he" or "there is," then it's a good training wheel to ask students to reconsider what they wrote. If they can come up with a purpose, fine. The rule allows for that. But if they can't, then the rule has worked.
Susan
-----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
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of
Susan van Druten
Sent: Tue 5/26/2009 8:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions
John, you have actually made my point.
You say you would "work with this writer to subordinate,
coordinate, and complementize/relativize clauses and perhaps to
consider more carefully the semantic weight/information packaging
of verb choice."
If I said what you just said to my students, they would look at me
like I was trying to be condescending. So, of course, I don't say
that. Instead I just use plain-speak and ask them to change up
their sentence starts.
Is the student "likely [to] produce confusing sentences
(unnecessarily complex structures) out of a belief that that is
what teachers want"? No. I am there in the high school
classroom. They do not create twisted syntax. Instead they fix
the core problem.
I have expertise in this area. I have adjusted my lofty ideas to
reflect what works with my struggling student writers. You can
keep trying to justify what you think should work, but it conflicts
with what I have experienced.
On May 26, 2009, at 6:48 PM, John Dews-Alexander wrote:
I would not encourage this student to vary sentence openers as
there is no problem with the sentence openers. The writer clearly
has a focused topic in mind that will carry forward as given
information throughout the paragraph (if that is not an appropriate
topic for that length of time, then that is the problem, not the
structure).
I would work with this writer to subordinate, coordinate, and
complementize/relativize clauses and perhaps to consider more
carefully the semantic weight/information packaging of verb choice.
Focusing on sentence opener variation here would seem (to me)
quite a distraction from the real problems that indicate the
maturity of the writing. The writer would not improve the core
problems and would likely produce confusing sentences
(unnecessarily complex structures) out of a belief that that is
what teachers want.
John Alexander
Austin, Texas
On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Susan van Druten
<[log in to unmask]> <mailto:[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Craig, you are ignoring my concern when you continue to bring up
Frost, Obama, and Silko. We agree that purposeful repetition is
the mark of a mature style. You should now drop that out of your
argument. In fact you should have dropped that on after May 18th
when I acknowledged and refuted your point. I said, "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."
I am teaching students who do not have a mature style. I went to
school today to find you an example. Do you or do you not agree
that the writer below could use some advice on changing up her
sentence starts?
Landon says Jamie is "lighter than the leaves of a tree that had
fallen in autumn." He is comparing Jamie's weight to leaves
falling. He has really started to notice it that she has become so
sick that she has lost a lot of weight. He had to support her
because she could barely hold herself up. He is not only realizing
just her change in weight. He sees 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.
On May 26, 2009, at 7:47 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:
Susan,
I believe our teaching practices should be based on a solid
understanding of how language works. If we tell students that
varying
sentence openings (using something other than the subject as
opening)is
a goal of good writing, then we should find a high number of those
variations in excellent writing. The truth is that we don't.
As an explanation for your motivation, you mentioned that
students
sometimes keep the same subject for as much as five sentences in a
row. Again, I tried to point out that good writers do this quite
often. I mentioned Frost's "Acquainted with the Night", which
starts
every sentence with "I have", copied in the opening to Leslie
Silko's
much anthologized "Yellow Woman" to show that the great majority of
the sentences started with "I", many of them consecutively, and
copied
a passage from Obama's heralded speech on race to show how he
effectively repeats the same subject or same subject opening for
long
stretches of text. I don't mean to imply that you are dealing with
mature writers, but starting sentences with the subject and
repeating
sentence openers can be thought of as the mark of a mature style.
There are good reasons for this. If you look at information
flow in a
text (given/new), given is almost always first and new is almost
always
last. The most important function of a sentence opener (usually the
subject for good writers) is not variation, but continuity. The
opening
establishes connection with what went before. One obvious way to
accomplish that is to repeat openings. Good writers exploit
repetition
for these purposes. Inexperienced writers tend to move on much too
quickly.
The one place we agree, I think, is that a number of different
structures can act as the subject of a sentence and students should
have those available as resources. I believe they should be used
for
continuity, though, not for variation.
I think we have gotten confused from time to time about what
kind of
variation we are talking about. A variation of subject is one. A
variation of the kinds of structures that can act as subject is
another. A variation of the kinds of structures that open
sentences is
another.
Christensen's essay seems to me good argument for expecting
that most
sentences will start with the subject and that when we have
variation
form that (about 25% of the time), those will usually be simple
adverbials.
As a more direct answer to your question, I believe it is
harmful to
imply to students that good writers try to vary their sentence
openings. I spend more time with my students trying to get them
to see
how good writers use repetition, including a repetition of
subjects, to
build coherence into texts.
I'm glad you can understand this as a discussion about good
teaching
practices, not a personal criticism.
Craig
Craig, I'm still not clear on where you stand. Do you still
believe
it is bad practice for a teacher to show students various ways to
start sentences? Is it harmful to have them try changing up
sentences on a worksheet? (I don't know how you got the idea
that I
was requiring them to vary every start in their own essays.)
I enjoy the spirit of the conversation. Just because I thought
you
were dismissing my argument and called you on it doesn't mean I am
not enjoying myself.
Susan
On May 24, 2009, at 9:56 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:
Susan,
I believe that mentoring young people on their path toward
a mature
literacy is a very difficult process. As teachers, we should
all be
constantly examining and refining our practices. We are far,
far from
perfect in what we do. That is at least equally true of our
profession
as a whole. We need to ask ourselves, over and over again, if
what we
are doing is best for the students we are serving. Once you
posted to
the list that you ask students to vary their sentence openings
to keep
from being boring, that advice became subject to the kind of
conversation we do routinely on this list. It has nothing at
all to do
with whether any of us believe you are a nazi or a bad
teacher. We
simply need to be able to consider these approaches with an
open mind.
I hope you can understand that the spirit of conversation was
never
intended to be personal.
That being said, I would ask you to question seriously
whether the
"style guide" you are using is at all thoughtful or accurate.
It says,
first of all, that students use non-subject openers about 50%
of the
time. I wonder if that is based on any kind of scholarly
study. The
studies refered to on list recently seem to show that a
professional
writer opens with the subject much MORE than that, at an
average of
about 75%. The lowest total in Christensen's study was 60%, the
highest
about 90% for acclaimed professional writers. If that is the
case,
then
students already vary sentence openings more than mature
writers. I
would add that the writers in the study were successful, not
boring.
I would recommend a book like Martha Kolln's "Rhetorical
Grammar" as a
more linguistically sound source of advice.
But above all, don't be shy about joining our talk. I
apologize if
anything I said made you feel as if you were under attack as a
teacher.
As a profession, we are still a long way from having fully
grounded,
effective, widely accepted practices. We need to be respectful
of each
other as we work that out, and I apologize again for any failures
on my
part to do that.
Craig
Jean, I give them a handout that can be found in many style
guides.
I'm pasting it in. Sorry if some of you thought I was a writing
Nazi, who demanded students never dare repeat the same
starting word
in an entire essay. Yikes, I should have experienced lots more
outrage, tar, and feathers!
Sentence Beginnings
Vary the beginnings of your sentences.
Most writers begin about half their sentences with the subject-
far
more than the number of sentences begun in any other way. But
overuse of the subject-first beginnings results in monotonous
writing. Below are several ways to vary the beginnings of your
sentences.
WORDS
Two adjectives: Angry and proud, Alice resolved to
fight back.
An adverb: Suddenly a hissing and
clattering came
from the heights around us.
A connecting word: For students who have just
survived the
brutal college-entrance marathon, this competitive atmosphere
is all
too familiar. But others, accustomed to being stars in high
school,
find themselves feeling lost in a crowd of overachievers.
An interrupting adverb: A healthy body, however, is just as
important as a healthy mind.
A series of words: Light, water, temperature,
minerals-
these affect the health of plants.
PHRASES
A connecting phrase: If the Soviet care and feeding of
athletes at times looks enviable, it is far from perfect. For
one
thing, it can be ruthless.
A prepositional phrase: Out of necessity they stitched all of
their secret fears and lingering childhood nightmares into this
existence.
An infinitive: To be really successful, you will
have to be trilingual: fluent in English, Spanish, and computer.
A gerund: Maintaining a daily exercise
program
is essential.
A participle: Looking out of the window high
over
the state of Kansas, we see a pattern of a single farmhouse
surrounded by fields, followed by another single homestead
surrounded
by fields.
An appositive: A place of refuge, the Mission
provides
food and shelter for Springfield's homeless.
An absolute: His fur bristling, the cat went
on the
attack.
CLAUSES
An adverbial clause: When you first start writing-and
I think
it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to
death that
if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never
going to
show up again.
An adjective clause: The freshman, who was not a
joiner of
organizations, found herself unanimously elected president of
a group
of animal lovers.
A noun clause: Why earthquakes occur is a
questions to
ask a geologist.
On May 22, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Jean Waldman wrote:
Susan,
This is the first time you mentioned that you teach the students
HOW to vary their sentences. I was under the impression that you
just demand that they do it and grade them on whether they do it.
What method do you use to teach the different possible
variations?
Jean Waldman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan van Druten"
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