Ed Vavra notes:

>>>>>Hunt, in "Early Blooming
>and Late Blooming Syntactic Structures" rather convincingly argues that
>participles are late blooming -- after subordinate clauses, which bloom
>between seventh and ninth grades. <<<<<

and asks, >>>have you read the research by Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban? <<<

I would submit that if reading certain books that include 'late blooming'
structures allows 6th and 7th graders to use them effectively, that these
structures are in the students' capacity to learn successfully.  Is it
possible that Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban studied what does happen under
certain sets of circumstances, but that under other circumstances, students
are capable of learning more complex types of constructions?  Ed noted also
that certain constructions might be more common in narratives than in
expository writing.  I would think that if a construction appears in one
type of writing, than this is evidence that it is in the student's area of
proximal development, even if it does not appear in all forms of writing.

If student attempts to use these constructions actually leads to more
garbled writing, then I would agree that such teaching is harmful.  If the
children simply don't hold on to it, the teaching might be wasted time, but
I could hardly call that harmful to their development.  In reality, the
problem may be that other teachers don't utilize and develop further
abilities, rather than the child not being ready to learn them.  This also
happens in any other subject area where teaching is not reinforced by
further teaching.  At any rate, if greater access to more complex forms
leads students to use them spontaneously, and if using them successfully
leads the students to greater comprehension when they encounter them in
reading, then yes, I would think we should celebrate this.

I do think that some of the research on sentence combining did show that it
resulted in writing that is less coherent, although the specific references
escape me at the moment.  I had the impression that these studies were done
on elementary school kids, and used less structured, unguided forms of
sentence combining.  Sentence combining seems to mean very different things
to different people.  Also, during sixth and seventh grades, children are
undergoing rather dramatic changes in their cognitive capacities, and these
capacities need to be used to enhance their development. I'm not convinced
that research done on elementary kids can necessarily be transferred to
middle school kids, considering the developmental changes that take place
during pre-adolescence.  I would say, however, that teachers need to make a
point of paying attention to the impact of these exercises on the overall
writing, and make individualized judgments as to how much a particular child
is ready to develop at any one time.

I also think that the research on sentence combining needs to come up with
some theories, and test out these theories, as to why it has the effects
that it has.  Is sentence combining the only way to achieve these effects?
Understanding the underlying mechanisms could do more to enhance grammar and
writing instruction than just saying that one particular method works.  You
could develop a wider repertoire of approaches, and use the one approach
more effectively, if you understand what part of the activity is having the
strongest impact.

Personally, I find that sentence structure imitation exercises are more
useful than sentence combining, and they have the added benefit of aiding
assessment by demonstrating exactly where the student is in ability --
students who don't understand a particular structure or a particular level
of complexity aren't able to imitate it successfully.  They create very
garbled sentences once you pass their level of competency, and show you
exactly where you need to lighten up.  However, I also think these exercises
are most useful when combined with several types of activities that are
mutually reinforcing.

Susan

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