I appreciate enormously the thoughtful, four-hour posting by Ed Varva, as
well as his expression of appreciation to Rebecca and the others. Together
they prompt me to reply with a question and a comment.

First, in his letter to Rebecca, Ed wrote,

 "I appreciate your taking over as editor, Dave's taking over as Treasurer,
and Michael's taking over as webmaster. "

My question is, Are these gerund phrases, which would require the
possessives, or are they participles? Does he appreciate
Rebecca/Dave/Michael ...for/who are...taking, or does he appreciate the acts
of taking over that are being done by these people?

My comment regarding Francis Christensen is that his definition of the
cumulative sentence does indeed state that the free modifiers follow the
main clause, but it is a main clause that may have free modifiers before or
within the main clause as well. In fact, the Second Principle of The
Christensen Rhetoric Program is "Direction of Movement," in which he shows
that modifiers point ahead as well as backward. I have talked with his
widow, Bonniejean, about this slightly confusing matter, and she shrugs and
says, "Whatever makes for the best writing."

It is fun to get kids exploring the potential of the placement of these
modifiers. I have them compare these three sentences:

Sliding into home plate, the rookie brought the crowd to their feet.

The rookie, sliding into home plate, brought the crowd to their feet.

The rookie brought the crowd to their feet, sliding into home plate and
kicking up a cloud of dust.

(Anyone bothered by that last one?)

P.S. When I introduced myself a couple of weeks ago, I said I teach at a
boys prep school, grades 7-9. Actually, it's 7-12, and I teach the parts of
the Christensen method in grades 7 and 9, and pretty much the whole thing to
a junior/senior writing elective. I also run a summer program based on his
system (www.writeforcollege.com)

Cheers, and Happy New Year! I'm off to shovel snow.

Don Stewart