Hello

 

I am reading exit essays for the developmental composition classes this
week.  The assignment asks students to read an article, summarize it,
and then write a response to it.  A student wrote the following
sentences:

 

 

"Comparing size portions of food and the size of dishware has a lot to
do with how choices and behaviors are made by people discovered by Mr.
Wansink, the author of the book," Mindless Eating." 

 

"Decisions made by people are like a structural design of choices was
another discovery made by a psychologist."

 

"The way choices are presented to people is a question of making the
right one."

 

These sentences are not too unusual for these classes, and  they occur
much more frequently in their summaries that in their responses..  One
thing that is interesting is that this student seems to have just
discovered the passive, but isn't making effective use of it. It's clear
that students are going through developmental stages in which they are
moving on to both more complicated reading, and writing more complicated
sentences, so I don't necessarily thing the sentences are 'bad,'
although I don't think they are conveying the information in the way the
student intends to convey it.  In fact, in a way, I think these are
'good' sentences because they show the student is experimenting with
more sophisticated writing.  However, I also think that some students
think that what we are really asking them to do is make the sentences as
obscure as possible.  They aren't convinced that more sophisticated
sentences can coexist with clarity.  

 

I am wondering whether you see this as a problem of not knowing how to
place information effectively in a sentence, or is a developmental
problem that will improve with experience?  Should we explicitly teach
emphasis and focus, or should we just make sure they keep writing a lot?


 

What is your take on this?  And does it matter what school of grammar
you adhere too?  Does that change pedagogy?

 

Janet

 

 


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