HELP! In the following construction should it be "take" or "bring" in the quote? "Victor, when you leave the storeroom, please (take/bring) some chalk back to the classroom," Mr. Luttati said. > -----Original Message----- > From: Craig Hancock [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2001 9:02 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: teaching appositives to seventh graders > > Ed, > A week or so ago I included a statement by my son at age five that > may be of some relevance here: I wish I was a fairy so I could put a > spell on you and you would live forever. It includes subordination that > is fairly routine at this age: the content clause I was a fairy and > adverbial subordination of the so that variety. Relative clauses > (especially nonrestrictive) may indeed come at a later date, but certainly > adverbial subordinate clauses and many types of content clauses are in the > repertoire by age five. You seem to be in danger of doing what you are > warning others not to -- lumping all subordinate clauses together. I think > we also need to be careful about assuming that all these structures appear > in our writing as transformations. If they do, they shouldn't be thought > of as stylistic. Complex clause structures seem natural to speech. What > writing tends to lead us toward is complexity built into noun phrases, a > response to the pressure to build considerable meaning into the clause > itself. Relative clauses and appositional phrases may indeed be responses > to that pressure, since both are involved in postnominal modification. > Other kinds of subordination are much, much closer to speech. > Language acquisition is not my area of expertise, but your cautions > seem worth serious consideration. Like you, I am appalled at the lack of > knowledge students bring to college. It's not just lack of knowledge, but > terrible misinformation and misunderstanding, some of which I'll pass on > when I have the time. I don't do it often, but I sometimes debrief my > students on what they know before teaching anything, and the results would > be comical if they weren't of such serious consequence. > I don't think you can teach clauses without teaching phrases. I note > that you start your own KISS grammar with prepositional phrases. I would > like to argue for constituency as a fundamental early concept, with phrase > and clause as the core of that. Wouldn't it be wonderful if students > came to college with that? > > Craig 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/