Ed,

I think you hit upon something crucial when you noticed that in your own students' writing, the syntax varied widely from one piece to another, for some of the students.  I remember at least one article (Crowhurst?) demonstrating that the syntax of argumentative writing differed significantly from that of narrative writing (at least, that's how I remember it).  Then, too, my observations about "emerging grammar" ("grammar emerging"?) suggests that the grammar may differ with attention to content, prior to writing.  So we have at least three conditions worth investigating:  constrained (e.g. the Aluminum passage);
normal; and enhanced.  Also, narrative versus persuasive seems worth investigating.  The way writing is taught in the school/classroom is another relevant factor--perhaps QUITE relevant.  I agree,too, that it would be good to get the writings of older students, as you and Loban suggest.  No wonder most of us don't undertake experimental research, eh?  I empathize with the privacy issues problem.  I had no trouble getting and using grade 1-6 samples in the 80s, but times have changed. This could become a humungous project, but the results would be so much more valuable.

Connie

Ed Vavra wrote:

> Connie,
>      I've long known about the Hunt articles, but I was not familiar with NAEP. I'll look into that. You are right that freely written pieces are more syntactically diverse, but as I will try to show when I put it on the web, the revisions of the Aluminum passage have some distinct research advantages. The revisions may have another advantage, especially now. Getting samples from students ages 9, 13, and 17 would be helpful, but as Loban's study showed, it would be even better to get 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18 year-olds. But privacy issues cause concern. I really would like freely written pieces from
> each grade level, preferably on the same (or a similar) topic, i.e., in the same mode. It appears, however, that getting permission for that is a real concern.  Because revisions of "Aluminum" reveal no personal content, it should be easier to get them. Ideally, I'd like to have a revision of the Aluminum passage AND a free writing sample from each student. That way I could study the correlation between the two. I started a correlation study a long time ago, and it is in part on the web, but these things take a LONG time to do, and because it was my own students, and because I wanted to do some other things, I never
> finished it. One of the things it showed is that words per main clause (the major measure for Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban) varied widely for some of the students. (I had analyzed three pieces by each student.)
> See: http://www2.pct.edu/courses/evavra/ED498/R/Spr95/index.htm
> Thanks for your help.
> Ed
>
> Connie Weaver wrote:
>
> > Ed,
> >
> > I'm glad that you're undertaking such research.  Did you know that the NAEP keeps a data base of students' writing samples from the National Assessment of Writing?  It's my understanding that researchers can have access to these writing samples from kids ages 9, 13, and 17.  Also, Kellogg Hunt's research did a lot with the "Aluminum" passage; see, for example, his monograph Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels (NCTE, 1965) and his article "Early blooming and late blooming syntactic structures; in C. R. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.), Evaluating Writing:  Describing, Measuring, Judging (pp. 94-104),
> > again from the National Council of Teachers of English.  As I remember it, the freely written pieces were more syntactically diverse than the rewrites of the "Aluminum" passage, a fact that may correlate with what I've noticed informally--see the "Emerging Grammar" article I did, at your request.
> >
> > Connie Weaver
> >
> > EDWARD VAVRA wrote:
> >
> > > I'll probably post this message again later, after I have put the research project I am currently working on out on the web. However, I am looking for schools or a school district that would be interested in working with me in an attempt to describe the syntax of students' writing. In effect, this would mean collecting samples (anonymous, but preferably tied to national test scores) that I could analyze and put on the web. Although collecting students' writing raises many ethical and legal questions, one of the things I am interested in is simply students' revisions of Roy O'Donnell's "Aluminum" passage.  See:
> > > http://www2.pct.edu/courses/evavra/ENL111/Syntax/SSSAlum.htm
> > >
> > > Because the Aluminum passage simply involves a revision of someone else's text, questions of students' revealing personal information, etc. are significantly reduced. The project I am working on involves 93 revisions done by my college Freshmen ¯ rare is the student who could indentify which of the 93 he or she wrote.
> > >      Although I find my current project fascinating in itself ¯ for reasons I will explain when I put it out, I am interested in getting revisions from grades 6-12 so that I can explore the differences in syntactic encoding. I am, in a sense, preparing the ground for some of that research that Bill McCleary referred to. But we need to know more both about natural syntactic development and about what to look for in the research.
> > >      Anyone who is interested in helping, or who wants to know more, can contact me off list at [log in to unmask]
> > >
> > > I have, by the way, also put a guest book in the KISS grammar site. See:
> > >
> > > http://www2.pct.edu/courses/evavra/GB.htm