I think Susan's point, at its core, is one that we all find ourselves trying
to make sometimes (perhaps while banging our heads up against a wall):
"Please, just try something different!"
When writers create texts that read something like, "I am going to tell you
about George Washington. George Washington was a great man. He was the first
president. He chopped down a cherry tree. He did not tell lies. He fought in
a war," asking them to vary sentence openers is just ONE form of a larger
request. What we really want them to do is care. Their writing seems robotic
because it, for all practical purposes, lacks any style. In order to elicit
style, voice, and variety, I believe we first have to tackle motive.
Composition hinges on motive and intent; the "because it is an assignment"
motive is often the cause of simple prose that lacks "mature" sentence
constructions.
I don't like to teach the "vary sentence openers" lesson because it misses
the point. For writers who are unmotivated, it falls on deaf ears. For
students who are motivated, it lacks precision. That's not to say that I
don't agree with Susan about the value of variety. However, I suggest high
school teachers focus on variety throughout the sentence. What about varying
predicate structures? Verb types? Modifiers? Sentences are robotic not
because they are parallel in sentence openers; they're robotic because they
are parallel in all function slots (like basic readers for very young
children..."See Spot run. See Spot play. See Spot sit.")
I've used Killgallon's sentence composing books before and am a big fan of
them. His books encourage manipulation of structure (while a little soft on
meaning), and are very helpful tools for developing writers. If the writers
are even trying, that is! Getting students to care about writing is "a whole
nother" ballgame though!
John Alexander
On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Susan van Druten <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Craig says: One way to respond is to point out how often writers keep the
> same subject in focus for larger stretches of text. In other words, a close
> look at
> structure argues against varying sentence openers, not for it.
>
> Using a prepositional phrase, a subordinate clause, or a gerund will
> usually not change the subject of the sentence. Therefore sentence start
> variation does not play havoc with the content (or the structure). Don
> Killgallon's *Sentence Composing for High School* is very useful in
> providing exercises that bring an awareness of the possible constructions.
> I'd be interested in you take on it if you've ever run across it. I only
> use it for honors and AP.
>
> Craig says: Varying sentences openers for the sake of "variety" is a
> different kind of goal.
>
> The variation is not for the sake of itself. It is to counter the very
> real problem of robotic writing in which the student repeats "He" or "There
> is" for five sentences in a row and has had no instruction in how he might
> try something new (as these writers are generally not readers and have not
> seen these variations in print). For most writers this stuff is intuitive.
> Many students do flounder, and for those who really struggle, explicit
> examples of how they might change up their writing is very helpful. I take
> it you have never encountered this type of writer.
>
> Craig says: It implies that form and meaning are separate, that meaning
> needs to be dressed up.
>
> Well, if you have a tin ear (or tin fingers), then you need help getting
> dressed. Untangle that metaphor! But there are writers who need concrete
> guidance in improving their style.
>
> 4) Sentence variety is not a goal I would advocate. The form of
> the sentences should mirror purpose.
>
> But that is the point. The purpose is to intrigue the reader and make her
> want to read on. A robotic writer needs to fix his form or he has lost
> purpose and audience.
>
> " There are REASONS for these [repetitions] choices, and variety seems to
> me a distraction.
>
> If there is a purpose for a repetition than that supersedes the variety
> rule. We have agreement on that. I am speaking of students who repeat
> "He" or "There is" five times in a row and perhaps in 75% of all their
> sentence starts. I wish I had an example essay to send to you, but, of
> course, it's the end of the year, and I already covered this mini-lesson so
> now my students all write perfectly. (wink, wink)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Craig, I have to respectfully disagree with your
>
> anti-varying-sentence-openers stance and take Susan's side on this one.
> In
> no particular order--
>
> 1. Students are exposed to tens/hundreds of thousands of well-formed
> sentences as they read literature and professionally written texts from
> other content areas. However, most of them remain oblivious to (and
> unmoved
> by) their structure.
> 2. You tend to portray this teaching position as robotic. It doesn't
> have to be at all. If students are properly exposed to and encouraged
> (not
> forced) to consider sentence variety when they write or revise, some of
> them, at least, will begin to move toward a style of writing that
> readers
> unconsciously consider to be more mature.
> 3. One of the key players in this transition is helping students become
> more aware of stylistic devices that professional authors have used to
> create their work.
> 4. Sentence openers is only one way of achieving sentence variety.
> Susan
> isn't saying that it's the only tool that she employs as she tries to
> encourage her students to make their writing more sophisticated. But
> it's a
> good one.
> 5. Don showed two paragraphs written in beautifully parallel style that
> exhibit no variety of sentence openers. Certainly one can write
> parallel
> passages without varying sentence openers and have a masterpiece as a
> result. And certainly if one tried to force Canton to vary his
> sentence
> openers in these two paragraphs, the result would be negative. Just
> because Canton chose not to employ sentence opener variety for two
> paragraphs does not support the assertion that such variety is not
> desirable. In fact, research clearly shows that good writers *do* vary
> sentence openers occasionally across a piece of writing, as cited both
> by
> Christensen and Ed Schuster. Many students will remain mired in their
> stylistic muck unless they are helped and encouraged to break out of
> it.
> 6. You analyze Susan's email postings and show that she does not vary
> her
> sentence openers. Of course not! She's not trying to write polished
> prose;
> she's writing short, off- the-cuff messages, explaining her position
> very
> clearly in the process.
>
> I firmly believe that making students consciously aware of ways to vary
> sentence openers, pointing them out (or having students do so) in common
> readings, and encouraging them to try them in their own writing are all
> steps in a very positive direction.
>
> I agree with so much of what you have to say, but God forbid that we
> should
> see eye to eye on everything!
>
> John
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 8:58 AM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> It's a delight to be away from the list for a day and then find my
> position so well argued in the meantime.
> The "training wheels" metaphor would work if "varying sentence
> openers"
> was an easier way to write. It's not. It's a little like trying to get
> kids to learn to ride with one eye shut. It's not good advice or good
> training.
>
> Craig>
>
> Varying sentence openings is a topic in every handbook ever written,
>
> beginning in very early years---at least by grade seven, I'm sure---
> and continuing into every college handbook on the market. You'd think
> with that much repetition, it would have taken hold somewhere along
> the line.
> I'd rather see the space devoted to how to achieve coherence.
>
> Ed
>
> On May 18, 2009, at 9:58 PM, Jan Kammert wrote:
>
> I think it was someone on this list who, months ago, talked about
> training wheels in teaching. Telling students to vary the way their
> sentences start seems to me like training wheels.
>
> Eventually the wheels come off. It is hard to get those wheels off
> for some kids, though. Today a student told me that a sentence
> cannot start with a pronoun. I have never heard that one before!
>
> Are you familiar with 6 trait writing? One of the traits is
> sentence fluency. One part of sentence fluency is starting
> sentences in different ways. Craig, if you can look at 6 trait
> writing, I'd love to hear what you think about it.
> Jan
>
>
> ---------- Original message from Susan van Druten
>
> <[log in to unmask]
>
> : ----------
>
>
>
> Craig,
> Unless you have taught average students in high school (or younger
> grades), I think you should rethink your stance. Don't just trust me
> on this. Maybe others who are on this list will chime in: Is
> teaching struggling writers to consider varying their sentence start
> is a helpful strategy? If you were intimately familiar with that
> type of student writing, you would know that I am not exaggerating
> just how robotic their essays can be.
>
> When I cover parallel structure in AP and honors classes, we talk
> about the difference between purposeful repetition (emphasis, humor,
> known-new, hooks, etc.) and repetition born by uninspired, lazy
> writing.
>
>
>
> On May 18, 2009, at 8:30 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
> Susan,
> If I saw the same writing, I might very well agree that change is
> needed, but I wouldn't use "sentence variety" as a motivation. I'm
> sure
> we can find many instances where good writers maintain subjects for
> longer stretches than that. The last time this came up on the
> list, I
> was teaching Frost's "Acquainted With the Night" and observed that
> ALL
> the sentences in that poem begin with "I have." Look closely at
> Obama's
> acclaimed speech on race, and you'll see many instances of sentence
> openers repeated many times. I kn ow that because my grammar class
> worked on a passage as an optional final.
> Francis Christensen deals with many of these issues in "Notes
> toward a
> new Rhetoric" in an essay called "Sentence Openers." (Among other
> things, he reports in his samples that 8.75% of sentences in
> expository
> writing for professional writers start with the fanboy
> conjunctions. In
> fiction, it was 4.55%. He called it a sign of "a mature style.")
>
> The
>
> essay is largely an argument against calls for unique sentence
> openers
> for purposes of variety.
> He ends the essay in this way: "What we need is a rhetorical
> theory of
> the sentence that will not merely combine the ideas of primer
> sentences, but will generate new ideas. In such a rhetoric,
>
> sentence
>
> elements would not be managed arbitrarily for the sake of secondary
> concerns such as variety. They would be treated functionally and
>
> the
>
> variety--and its opposite, parallelism and balance--allowed to grow
> from the materials and the effort to communicate them to the
> reader."
> since Ed brought up the issue, I would add that he found about
> 28.5% of
> sentences in professional expository writing open with adverbials.
> The
> number is smaller (20%) for fiction. There is great variability,
> though, byu author. The highest he found was for Rachel Carson's
> "The
> Sea Around Us", 79/200, almost 40%. The most common subject in
> fiction,
> by the way, is a pronoun.
>
> Craig>
>
> Craig,
>
>
> Varying sentence starts and known-new are different concepts.
> Students should do both. You have nicely analyzed my writing, but
> your analysis is irrelevant to my point.
>
> My students start their sentences with "He" five times in a row.
> Or
> "There is" or "It is" five times in a row.
>
>
>
> On May 17, 2009, at 7:13 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
> Susan,
> I honestly didn't get the point. But let me try again to
> describe your
> own writing. "We" brings you and I into focus. "a teacher" is the
> subject of the subordinate clause that starts sentence two. "I"
>
> is
>
> main
> clause subject. "That" refers back to the previous two sentences
> and is
> hardly "stylistic" in its choice. Do you start the second
> paragraph
> with "but" to prove a point? It seems a very good example of
> what I
> was
> talking about earlier. "A teacher" heads that sentence, a
> carryover
> from the previous paragraph and very much a given. Students then
> come
> into play, with "they" in the subordinate clause subject slots.
>
> "A
>
> teacher" is again the subject of the next sentence. "I" is the
> subject
> of the next two sentences, and "they" (standing in for students)
> ends
> the paragraph. You are doing what I am talking about, making the
> starts
> of your sentences "given", even repeating subjects ("a teacher",
> "they", "I")to build coherence. In almost every case, there is
> nothing
> about the subject itself that calls attention. It's "given", with
> attention on the new information to follow.
> If you are speaking/writing about your own understandings
>
> (your
>
> surprise at what I believe, what you have noticed, your
> intentions and
> expectations), then "I" is the natural choice of subject. The
> "new"
> information comes in the second part of the sentences. I suspect
> that
> the sentences in the third paragraph are short and clipped
> because you
> want them to sound simple, but the "I" subjects don't pose a
> problem.
> I do not vary my subjects. If anything, I work hard to keep a
> topic in
> focus for longer stretches of text, something I'm told the
> computer
> assessments are designed to pick up as a sign of sophistication.
> Inexperienced writers jump topics (and subjects) much too
> quickly, and
> it's not unusual for them to say they have been taught to do
>
> that.
>
> (Notice how "Inexperienced writers" is followed by "them" and
> "they" in
> the above compound sentence. "It's" is a dummy subject. "They"
> also
> starts the sentence to come.) They may be naturually coherent,
>
> but
>
> have
> been advised against following those instincts when they write.
> If you pick up a collection of award winning essays, you'll
>
> find
>
> the
> point verified essay after essay. Good writers repeat. They
> sustain
> subjects for long stretches, building in new information as they
> go.
> You also seem to do that when you write, at least in your recent
> post.
> I always spend time with classes looking at exactly this
> coherence
> building in effective texts. I underline the subjects in a
> paragraph of
> student writing just to direct attention to how quickly a topic
>
> is
>
> shifting in their text. They see it right away and adjust.
> Our advice should be based on observations about how meaning
> happens
> and on how effective writing works.
>
> Craig
>
>
>
> On May 16, 2009, at 9:20 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>
> You don't help students by giving them
> a false description of language because you believe they aren't
> capable
> of the truth.
>
>
>
> Maybe we don't actually disagree. If a teacher actually told
>
> her
>
> students that good writers never start sentences with the word
> "because" or an essay that doesn't have a thesis at the end of
> the
> first paragraph is wrong and an example of bad writing, then I
>
> am
>
> with you. That is false information.
>
> But a teacher who tells her students that they can only
> write in
>
> pencil, or that they must show their work, or that their essay
> must
> have 5 paragraphs is not giving them false information. Should
>
> a
>
> teacher clarify that the rule about "because" is only for this
> class
> and that when they are older they may break this rule? Yes. I
> think
> that probably does happen. I think it is too much for some
> students
> to process, and what they retain is just the rule itself.
>
> "Vary sentence starts" would be another example of bad advice.
>
>
> I am surprise that you believe this. I notice you vary your
> sentence
> starts. I do too. I would only break that rule to prove a
> point. I
> hope I have proved it. I am not sure if I have. I hope you
> will let
> me know.
>
>
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