...how would you (or how do you) teach towards the "known-new contract" in lower grades?
Craig's last post in the "sentences beginning with conjunctions" thread made me think about this topic. Craig cited Martha as saying that violating the known-new contract is the most pervasive problem in student writing, and he suggested that a rule like "vary sentence openings" might aggravate this problem. I generally agree with these points (though I think that varying sentence openings is not a bad idea--it's just that students should learn to do it not by introducing multiple subjects but though noun-substitution strategies and other means.) But the "known-new contract" seems like a pretty high-order, strategic approach to language; I'm not a psychologist, but I know that various psychological theories characterize young children as egocentric and abolutist in their thinking, whereas "known-new" seems pretty other-centric (i.e., reader-based) and context-sensitiv. I'm not saying that it's developmentally inappropriate to think about "known-new" in the lower grades; I'm just wondering what kinds of scaffolds you would put in place to support student's gradual development of the concept and skill of organizing thoughts from know to new. I can think of two general categories of scaffolds that could be used: rules and play.
For example, would you make a "rule" that new information is not allowed to appear at the beginning of a sentence or a paragraph? If so, how would you help them determine what is "new information"? Would you have them pick out some key terms--concepts and proper names, maybe--and introduce them at the ends of paragraphs? Of course, even if you could teach students to follow this kind of rule, they'd have to learn later on they should make it a rule of thumb rather than a tabboo--but that's true of all the rules that teachers make for young writers. I think the key point is that these rules should lead students in the (e.g., the rules should lead students towards understanding that coherent topic-strings are more important to readability than variation for variation's sake.)
Still, I wonder if students would "get it" more readily if coherent writing were presented more as a game or creative activity than as a set of rules. I'm thinking of some kind of "round-robin" exercise, where everyone has to passes around a piece of paper and has to respond to the previous person's sentence and add a new one. Or write dialogue, maybe first in pairs or groups and later alone, where each line is supposed to respond to the previous line and add something new? I just think that kids learn begin to pick up the idea of "known-new" in conversation long before they pick it up in writing, and having young writers emulate speech might help them emulate this principle in writing a little sooner. Another nice thing about dialogue is that young students could be allowed to write sentence fragments, as Craig suggests, without being implicitly taught that fragments are generally acceptable in written English.
I don't know--I'm just a college English professor and Writing Center guy, and I think teachers in the lower grades have a tougher job in many ways. I'm just wondering how they address this porblem of coherence, or how they could address it.
Brian
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig Hancock
Sent: Sat 5/16/2009 10:20 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions
Susan,
I have never been convinced by those arguments. Students don't complain
about those rules; they are simply limited by them. I don't say that as
an elitist teacher, but as a teacher who has taught many students that
other teachers have given up on. You don't help students by giving them
a false description of language because you believe they aren't capable
of the truth.
If we have to mislead first graders to keep them from writing sentence
fragments, then let them write sentence fragments. The fact is that you
can start a sentence with because. Why would we teach something false?
If you need to wait awhile to bring up the notion of a subordinate
clause, then let that be the time to talk about subordinate clause
fragments.
Clear writing is a wonderful goal. I don't believe the rules you cite
are a step in that direction.>
"Vary sentence starts" would be another example of bad advice. Good
writers sustain subjects for longer stretches of text, which is what
builds coherence. As Martha says in her teacher's manual for
"Rhetorical Grammar", the most common error of inexperienced writers is
breaking the known/new contract. Varying subject for "style" is a
mistake.
Our goal should be to deepen understanding about language, not set
arbitrary rules, especially if those rules are presented as somewhat
offical when, in fact, they are not.
I would extend that out to "rules" about essays, like the number of
sentences in a paragraph and so on. They are misleading and harmful.
I'm saying that on a professional list for fellow teachers. I'm sure
they are well intentioned mistakes, and I wouldn't criticize those
teachers quite so directly to my students. But I believe I should be
able to raise the objection here. We can and should do better.
Craig
But, yet, and nor have to signal a shift in meaning because that is
> what they mean! These words will always be referencing a previous
> idea. Should that previous idea be in the same sentence? For
> experienced writers there is no required rule. But it is helpful for
> novices to be guided by rules that generally lead to clear writing.
>
> The rules our students come to us with may have been very helpful for
> many beginning writers. Not starting a sentence with "because" is
> teaching first graders to avoid sentence fragments. Not starting a
> sentence with "I" is probably not a rule, but might actually be a
> teacher telling them to vary their sentence starts. I do notice that
> good readers are never bothered by writing teachers' rules. Good
> readers are taught by good writing. The students who complain are
> the very writers (poor readers) who needed those strict rules. They
> resent their training wheels perhaps because they now see that others
> were writing without them long ago and getting away with it.
>
> Our job is to not to admonish their previous teachers but to explain
> why those teachers gave them that advice at that time in their
> education. We can now tell them they are old enough and
> sophisticated enough to understand the nuances involved in writing
> and can now decide for themselves when to follow or break a rule.
>
> Because I know that some of my writers do not need "training-wheel"
> advice, I tell all my students they can break my rules if they
> provide justification in the margin. This is a good technique
> because it lets students know that my rules are not "real." My rules
> are just what will usually lead them to success. But writing is an
> art, and if they think they have mastered it, why then a note in the
> margin (even "I think this sounds better, but I'm not sure why") is
> meta-understanding. In Craig's first example, I can imagine a
> student justifying a separate sentence only because it must negate
> three previous separate sentences/clauses and not just the third
> sentence/clause. That is smart justification and meta-understanding
> of rules and when to break them.
>
> On May 16, 2009, at 2:38 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
>> Ed,
>> I think one of the reasons FANBOY connectives often start
>> sentences is
>> that conjunctions like "but" and "so" don't always simply connect two
>> clauses, but often signal a shift in meaning that can follow several
>> sentences and/or begin many more.
>> "She was always friendly. She always smiled. No one could fault her
>> everyday politeness. But something about her seemed cold." The "but in
>> a sequence like that marks a shift in thinking rather than a
>> connection
>> to the previous clause.
>> This is not just a hypothetical example. It happens very, very
>> often in
>> the best writing.
>> Students come to college thinking they know a few things about
>> grammar,
>> and one of them is that "You shouldn't start a sentence with...." and
>> that list includes "and", "but", "because", sometimes suprising things
>> like "I." I don't see any reason for the rule. I would go even
>> further--it is a foolish rule and foolish advice.
>> I don't believe a single finite clause that starts with "for" is a
>> fragment in traditional grammar. A single clause that starts with
>> "because" would be. The details would differ, but Zwicky's overall
>> point, that the two are not the same, is backed up.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>> I agree that it's not a problem for Zwicky's description (which,
>>> thanks to Herb, I now have a clearer picture of), but sentences---
>>> indeed, paragraphs---beginning with FANBOYS connectives are quite a
>>> problem for a great many English teachers, even though as Craig
>>> pointed out earlier, college handbooks have never banned the
>>> practice. Warriner neither approved nor disapproved, but a recent
>>> Warriner clone warns against the practice in "formal writing."
>>>
>>> Ed
>>>
>>> On May 14, 2009, at 9:18 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think a for-initial fragment where "for" means "because"
>>>> would be a problem for Zwicky's description, precisely because it's
>>>> a fragment and so would be interpretable as being the second of two
>>>> clauses, the first being ellipted.
>>>>
>>>> Herb
>>>>
>>>> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
>>>> Emeritus Professor of English
>>>> Ball State University
>>>> Muncie, IN 47306
>>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>> ________________________________________
>>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>>> [[log in to unmask]
>>>> ] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster [[log in to unmask]]
>>>> Sent: May 14, 2009 2:22 PM
>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>> Subject: Re: Equivalent expressions
>>>>
>>>> Ah, I suppose Arnold and I are talking about two different things.
>>>> Let me give an example from Oates of what I am talking about, an
>>>> example that has many interesting features---fragments especially---
>>>> besides the initial "for," which starts not only a sentence but
>>>> also a
>>>> new paragraph.
>>>>
>>>> The "Weidel house," it would be called for years. The Weidel
>>>> property." As if the very land---which the family had not owned in
>>>> any case, but only rented, partly with county-welfare support---were
>>>> somehow imprinted with that name, a man's identity. Or infamy.
>>>> For tales were told of the father who drank, beat and terrorized
>>>> his
>>>> family . . . .
>>>>
>>>> Ed
>>>>
>>>> On May 14, 2009, at 2:02 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ed,
>>>>>
>>>>> I assume you mean the coordinate clause introduced by "for" comes
>>>>> before the clause that it's coordinate with. I don't have a
>>>>> copy of
>>>>> Oates and Atwan. You might send these examples to Arnold. He would
>>>>> find them interesting.
>>>>>
>>>>> Herb
>>>>>
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>>>>> ] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster
>>>>> Sent: 2009-05-14 12:42
>>>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>>>> Subject: Re: Equivalent expressions
>>>>>
>>>>> Herb,
>>>>> I read the Zwicky article, and thanks for it, but I am puzzled by
>>>>> his
>>>>> stance that "for" cannot be used sentence initially. (I hope I
>>>>> haven't misunderstood what he is saying.) Joyce Carol Oates uses
>>>>> "for" initially six times in her 1995 essay, "They All Just Went
>>>>> Away." Susan Sontag uses the same word initially five times in her
>>>>> "Notes on 'Camp'."
>>>>> And this is not a new phenomenon. In "The Handicapped" (1911)
>>>>> "for"
>>>>> is used by Randolph Bourne in sentence initial position 16 times, I
>>>>> believe. It's also used, though much more rarely, by several other
>>>>> writers.
>>>>> (All these essays may be found in "The Best American Essays of
>>>>> the
>>>>> Century" by Oates and Atwan.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Ed S
>>>>>
>>>>> On May 14, 2009, at 11:58 AM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> English has a lot of equivalent expressions that attract the
>>>>>> attention of writing teachers and grammarians. Consider because/
>>>>>> for, however/but, which/that, much/a lot, and others you can
>>>>>> probably come up with yourself. Here's a link
>>>>>> (http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2008/12/28/forbecause/
>>>>>> ) to an extraordinarily lucid and insightful posting on the
>>>>>> topic by
>>>>>> that extraordinarily lucid and insightful grammarian Arnold
>>>>>> Zwicky.
>>>>>> Follow the internal links, and you'll see a subtle, perceptive,
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> witty mind at work.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Enjoy!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
>>>>>> Emeritus Professor of English
>>>>>> Ball State University
>>>>>> Muncie, IN 47306
>>>>>> [log in to unmask]
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