Hello, everyone,

I just joined this group yesterday, as recommended by Dr. Ed Vavra's web site. My I just say that I hope the tone and content of the recent exchanges have been atypical.

I teach English at an all-boys prep school, grades 7-9, and my greatest delight is showing kids how to make the connection between grammar and their writing. When the seventh graders read Call of the Wild, the focus is not on how to treat your dog, but on the style. Inspired by Jack London's sentence patterns, presented using the simple Christensen method of numbering the base clause and the free modifiers, these kids reach heights even their mothers had not thought they could. As one youngster said, "It makes you feel like you're a good writer!"

Are there other disciples of Francis Christensen out there?

Don Stewart