To: Janet Bone and Jane Picard (and any other interested parties):
 
Last week I posted a suggestion for dealing with comma splices--to use
either controlled composition or model sentences. Janet and Jane wrote and
asked for more information about these ideas and also what a t-unit is.
 
A t-unit is a term developed for composition research. If I remember
correctly, it means "minimal terminable unit" and is a short-hand way to
refer to the smallest unit that could be a complete, grammatical
sentence--i.e., a single independent clause along with any dependent
clauses or other modifers attached to it. A compound sentence consists of
two t-units, and a comma splice consists of two t-units that have been
joined by only a comma.
 
While one wouldn't use a term like t-unit with students, it is not clear
what term should be used instead. Last week I overheard a teacher
explaining that a comma splice involved joining two independent clauses
with a comma, but it seemed clear to me that this explanation was little
help to the 9th graders in the class. The many examples the teacher
provided seemed more useful. The teacher provided example sentences showing
the various correct (preferred?) ways to join two t-units and asked the
students to write their own imitations of the examples. This is roughly
what I mean by using model sentences except that the teacher didn't ask
that the imitations be grammatically similar to the originals. She was
happy if the items on both sides of the connector were t-units. It remains
to be seen, of course, whether the ability of students to imitate the
models translates into fewer comma splices in their writing.
 
The other method, controlled composition, was originally developed for ESL
writing classes and then was adapted for native speakers of English. I have
never seen a version for ESL, but I collected several controlled
composition textbooks for regular composition classes. My sense is that the
method has now fallen out of favor, for I have heard little about it
lately. Perhaps this is because of the general reaction in composition
theory against anything labeled as a "exercise (an OVER-reaction, in my
opinion) or because of the generally uninspiring quality of the writing in
some of the textbooks.
 
In any case, I was telling one of my MAT-level classes about the various
kinds of sentence exercises that had been tried in composition (sentence
combining, the Christensen method, etc.), and one of the students became
intrigued with controlled composition. He decided to experiment with it for
his master's project. I suggested that he use _A Creative Copybook_ by Leo
Rockas. To my knowledge, this is the most recent textbook in controlled
composition. It also uses material from high-quality professional sources
for its exercises. I don't want to steal my student's thunder, but he
specifically focused on comma splices, and it looks as if controlled
composition worked pretty well at helping 9th graders reduce their comma
splicing.
 
In Rockas' book, he gives students a passage written in single t-units and
asks students first to copy the passage exactly as written. Then he asks
them to copy it again, combining certain pairs of t-units into compound
sentences as they go.
 
I wish I could give you bibliographical information on the Rockas book and
on the other books as well, but I loaned all of my books to my student.
Perhaps you can find some examples in your departmental archives. Or
perhaps other subscribers on this list can supply some titles.
 
Bill McCleary
 
 
William J. McCleary                     Editor: Composition Chronicle
Associate Prof. of English              Viceroy Publications
Coordinator of Secondary English        3247 Bronson Hill Road
SUNY at Cortland                        Livonia, NY 14487
607-753-2076                            716-346-6859
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