= 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"Here's a rewrite of John's essay, with varied sentence openings:Today I going to tell you about George Washington. During colonial times, he was a great man. When he was about twelve, he chopped down a cherry tree. Also, he did not tell lies. When he was older, he fought in a war.
Better?
On May 19, 2009, at 8:15 PM, John Dews-Alexander wrote: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 AlexanderOn Tue, May 19, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Susan van Druten <[log in to unmask]> wrote: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"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 atstructure 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 youranti-varying-sentence-openers stance and take Susan's side on this one.Inno particular order--1. Students are exposed to tens/hundreds of thousands of well-formedsentences as they read literature and professionally written texts fromother content areas. However, most of them remain oblivious to (andunmovedby) their structure.2. You tend to portray this teaching position as robotic. It doesn'thave to be at all. If students are properly exposed to and encouraged(notforced) to consider sentence variety when they write or revise, some ofthem, at least, will begin to move toward a style of writing thatreadersunconsciously consider to be more mature.3. One of the key players in this transition is helping students becomemore aware of stylistic devices that professional authors have used tocreate their work.4. Sentence openers is only one way of achieving sentence variety.Susanisn't saying that it's the only tool that she employs as she tries toencourage her students to make their writing more sophisticated. Butit's agood one.5. Don showed two paragraphs written in beautifully parallel style thatexhibit no variety of sentence openers. Certainly one can writeparallelpassages without varying sentence openers and have a masterpiece as aresult. And certainly if one tried to force Canton to vary hissentenceopeners in these two paragraphs, the result would be negative. Justbecause Canton chose not to employ sentence opener variety for twoparagraphs does not support the assertion that such variety is notdesirable. In fact, research clearly shows that good writers *do* varysentence openers occasionally across a piece of writing, as cited bothbyChristensen and Ed Schuster. Many students will remain mired in theirstylistic muck unless they are helped and encouraged to break out ofit.6. You analyze Susan's email postings and show that she does not varyhersentence openers. Of course not! She's not trying to write polishedprose;she's writing short, off- the-cuff messages, explaining her positionveryclearly in the process.I firmly believe that making students consciously aware of ways to varysentence openers, pointing them out (or having students do so) in commonreadings, and encouraging them to try them in their own writing are allsteps in a very positive direction.I agree with so much of what you have to say, but God forbid that weshouldsee eye to eye on everything!JohnOn 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 myposition so well argued in the meantime.The "training wheels" metaphor would work if "varying sentenceopeners"was an easier way to write. It's not. It's a little like trying to getkids to learn to ride with one eye shut. It's not good advice or goodtraining.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 thinkwith that much repetition, it would have taken hold somewhere alongthe line.I'd rather see the space devoted to how to achieve coherence.EdOn May 18, 2009, at 9:58 PM, Jan Kammert wrote:I think it was someone on this list who, months ago, talked abouttraining wheels in teaching. Telling students to vary the way theirsentences start seems to me like training wheels.Eventually the wheels come off. It is hard to get those wheels offfor some kids, though. Today a student told me that a sentencecannot start with a pronoun. I have never heard that one before!Are you familiar with 6 trait writing? One of the traits issentence fluency. One part of sentence fluency is startingsentences in different ways. Craig, if you can look at 6 traitwriting, I'd love to hear what you think about it.Jan---------- Original message from Susan van Druten: ----------Craig,Unless you have taught average students in high school (or youngergrades), I think you should rethink your stance. Don't just trust meon this. Maybe others who are on this list will chime in: Isteaching struggling writers to consider varying their sentence startis a helpful strategy? If you were intimately familiar with thattype of student writing, you would know that I am not exaggeratingjust how robotic their essays can be.When I cover parallel structure in AP and honors classes, we talkabout the difference between purposeful repetition (emphasis, humor,known-new, hooks, etc.) and repetition born by uninspired, lazywriting.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 isneeded, but I wouldn't use "sentence variety" as a motivation. I'msurewe can find many instances where good writers maintain subjects forlonger stretches than that. The last time this came up on thelist, Iwas teaching Frost's "Acquainted With the Night" and observed thatALLthe sentences in that poem begin with "I have." Look closely atObama'sacclaimed speech on race, and you'll see many instances of sentenceopeners repeated many times. I kn ow that because my grammar classworked on a passage as an optional final.Francis Christensen deals with many of these issues in "Notestoward anew Rhetoric" in an essay called "Sentence Openers." (Among otherthings, he reports in his samples that 8.75% of sentences inexpositorywriting for professional writers start with the fanboyconjunctions. Infiction, it was 4.55%. He called it a sign of "a mature style.")Theessay is largely an argument against calls for unique sentenceopenersfor purposes of variety.He ends the essay in this way: "What we need is a rhetoricaltheory ofthe sentence that will not merely combine the ideas of primersentences, but will generate new ideas. In such a rhetoric,sentenceelements would not be managed arbitrarily for the sake of secondaryconcerns such as variety. They would be treated functionally andthevariety--and its opposite, parallelism and balance--allowed to growfrom the materials and the effort to communicate them to thereader."since Ed brought up the issue, I would add that he found about28.5% ofsentences in professional expository writing open with adverbials.Thenumber is smaller (20%) for fiction. There is great variability,though, byu author. The highest he found was for Rachel Carson's"TheSea Around Us", 79/200, almost 40%. The most common subject infiction,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, butyour 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 todescribe yourown writing. "We" brings you and I into focus. "a teacher" is thesubject of the subordinate clause that starts sentence two. "I"ismainclause subject. "That" refers back to the previous two sentencesand ishardly "stylistic" in its choice. Do you start the secondparagraphwith "but" to prove a point? It seems a very good example ofwhat Iwastalking about earlier. "A teacher" heads that sentence, acarryoverfrom the previous paragraph and very much a given. Students thencomeinto play, with "they" in the subordinate clause subject slots."Ateacher" is again the subject of the next sentence. "I" is thesubjectof the next two sentences, and "they" (standing in for students)endsthe paragraph. You are doing what I am talking about, making thestartsof your sentences "given", even repeating subjects ("a teacher","they", "I")to build coherence. In almost every case, there isnothingabout the subject itself that calls attention. It's "given", withattention on the new information to follow.If you are speaking/writing about your own understandings(yoursurprise at what I believe, what you have noticed, yourintentions andexpectations), then "I" is the natural choice of subject. The"new"information comes in the second part of the sentences. I suspectthatthe sentences in the third paragraph are short and clippedbecause youwant them to sound simple, but the "I" subjects don't pose aproblem.I do not vary my subjects. If anything, I work hard to keep atopic infocus for longer stretches of text, something I'm told thecomputerassessments are designed to pick up as a sign of sophistication.Inexperienced writers jump topics (and subjects) much tooquickly, andit's not unusual for them to say they have been taught to dothat.(Notice how "Inexperienced writers" is followed by "them" and"they" inthe above compound sentence. "It's" is a dummy subject. "They"alsostarts the sentence to come.) They may be naturually coherent,buthavebeen advised against following those instincts when they write.If you pick up a collection of award winning essays, you'llfindthepoint verified essay after essay. Good writers repeat. Theysustainsubjects for long stretches, building in new information as theygo.You also seem to do that when you write, at least in your recentpost.I always spend time with classes looking at exactly thiscoherencebuilding in effective texts. I underline the subjects in aparagraph ofstudent writing just to direct attention to how quickly a topicisshifting in their text. They see it right away and adjust.Our advice should be based on observations about how meaninghappensand on how effective writing works.CraigOn May 16, 2009, at 9:20 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:You don't help students by giving thema false description of language because you believe they aren'tcapableof the truth.Maybe we don't actually disagree. If a teacher actually toldherstudents that good writers never start sentences with the word"because" or an essay that doesn't have a thesis at the end ofthefirst paragraph is wrong and an example of bad writing, then Iamwith you. That is false information.But a teacher who tells her students that they can onlywrite inpencil, or that they must show their work, or that their essaymusthave 5 paragraphs is not giving them false information. Shouldateacher clarify that the rule about "because" is only for thisclassand that when they are older they may break this rule? Yes. Ithinkthat probably does happen. I think it is too much for somestudentsto 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 yoursentencestarts. I do too. I would only break that rule to prove apoint. Ihope I have proved it. I am not sure if I have. I hope youwill letme know.To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's webinterface at:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's webinterfaceat:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's webinterfaceat:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interfaceat:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:and select "Join or leave the list"Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
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/
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