Ed, sorry to be late replying to your questions about my posting on noun absolutes. The sentences I quoted were all written by 7th graders who had not been specifically taught the construction. Most of them were good readers (usually of fantasy) and had chosen to write a story for their weekend journal assignment. Could it be true that good readers who are focusing on telling a story that they visualize strongly are going to draw on patterns they have internalized in reading? Our study of sentence diagramming and clause analysis (see my article in Syntax) stops short of this more sophisticated construction. In 10th grade I point out to the class these kinds of sentences and have them practice imitating them, which they enjoy doing. I too am interested in the 24 sentence patterns. I think sentence imitation works best when you lift sentences from the literature the students are reading. That way they see the effectiveness of the construction and the point of learning and practicing it. When dealing with present participial phrases, for example, you can study examples where the phrase is at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence, and discuss how the phrase is related to the main clause (cause, effect, simultaneity, etc.). Again, you will probably want to point out the effectiveness of word choice, use of simile, or other effective elements displayed by the sentence. If students can see the disparate elements of writing as contributing to a powerful effect, they will be less averse to studying them. To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/