As Peter has suggested, it was Francis Christensen who developed his rhetoric program using the concept of "Levels of Generality," with grammatical units being added to the main clause in order to create sentences of great variety and style. Such sentences he defined as "cumulative sentences." Unlike the large number of groupings that are displayed in Scott's example, the Christensen method requires punctuation, generally a comma but sometimes a colon or dash, to move from one level to another. The levels are numbered, with the main clause being a Level 1. A Level 2 modifies something in the Level 1, and so on. There are basically eight "free modifiers" that can appear in those lower levels, and by teaching just those eight, you can make the solid connection between grammar and writing. 

Those eight free modifiers, by the way, are the present and past participial phrases, the absolute phrase, the noun phrase, the adjective and adverb clause, the prepositional phrase, and the adjective cluster. 

Don Stewart


On 2/26/08, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I don't know if there is a teaching method or a theory behind it, but the method takes advantage of one of the features of good sentences, that that complexity increases rightward.  We can add modifiers to the right much more easily than to the left.  A couple of famous linguistic examples are

 

Right Branching

 

the height of the lettering on the covers of the books

 

Left Branching

 

the books' covers' lettering's height

 

Using Kimberley's teaching technique reinforces adding complexity to the right and teaches an important feature of well constructed sentences.

 

Herb

 

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kimberley Hunt
Sent: 2008-02-26 20:38
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: graphic display of text syntax for comprehensibility

 

Scott,

Yes, I've used this method -- for teaching Shakespeare to high school students.

I learned the basics in workshops at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater where it's called "scoring the text." It's a method actors used to isolate parentheticals and main clauses to derive a clearer understanding of their lines. I took what I learned there and applied it in grammar lessons for phrases and clauses in my 11th and 12th grade literature classes, and we've used it extensively in poetry analysis as well as Shakespeare.

As one of the class exercises, I had them, as a group, build a story by adding phrases and clauses to main clauses -- which generated a structure that looks very much like the one in your message. They had a good time telling a story in really, really long sentences, too. I had fun, too (oops -- am I allowed to have fun teaching grammar and syntax?).

I don't know what the grammatical theory is behind this, but I do now recall learning to do something like this back in the 1980s when I in training as a college composition teacher at Loyola University Chicago.

Hope that illuminates a little.


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Scott Woods
Sent: Feb 26, 2008 3:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: graphic display of text syntax for comprehensibility

Listmates,

I came across a way of displaying text graphically to show the reader the chunks of language.  The original, from a Latin teaching website,  http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/accrdrs.html , has one version with extensive grammar mark ups and another with just the chunks, separated vertically on the page. A middle type in English follows:

 

The boy,

        crouched

             on his nail keg

                  at the back

                     of the crowded room,

knew

        he smelled cheese,

        and more:

from where he sat

     he

     could see

          the ranked shelves

                close-packed with the solid, squat, dynamic shapes

                                                                                   of tin cans

                      whose labels his stomach read,

                            not from the lettering

                                    which meant nothing to his mind

                           but from the scarlet devils and the silver curve of fish--

   this,

        the cheese which he knew he smelled

        and the hermetic meat

                  which his intestines believed he smelled

        coming in intermittent gusts

                   momentary and brief

         between the other constant one,

                    the smell and sense

                              just a little of fear

                                     because mostly of despair and grief,

        the old fierce pull of blood.

 

The purpose of such a presentation is to make syntax clearer to the reader to improve comprehension.  Has anyone on the list used such a presentation method?  Is anyone aware of any research on it?  Any thoughts?

 

Scott Woods

 

 

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Kimberley Hunt
Instructor, English Dept.
St. Scholastica Academy
7416 N. Ridge
Chicago, IL 60645
773-764-5715 x343

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--
Don Stewart
Write for College
______________________
Keeper of the memory and method
of Dr. Francis Christensen
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