Susan,

   I wouldn't consider Silko's use of "I" as parallel structure. For Obama, I'll certainly grant you the point. Repetition of subject is not a direct goal--coherence is the goal, repetition one means toward that end. Since subjects are in the usual "given" slot, this is especially relevant to subjects, whether in parallel structures or not. .

  I would take serious issue, though, with calling your students' writing "mindless repetition" or "dull, typical, and uninspired." I didn't have that reaction to it at all. Generally speaking, the "given" in an utterance gets very little attention. The weakness in the passage has nothing to do with the sentence openers.

  If I were working with the same student, I would focus on bringing the meaning into a clearer focus. That means considering these sentences in relation to the purpose of the whole paper. I'm guessing that the central focus is intended to be Landon's growing recognition of Jamie's worsening condition. If that is inaccurate or unimportant to the overall paper, then those adjustments come first. Conceivably, the whole passage could be cut. But if the observations are both important and accurate, then the passage could be made more coherent by making that purpose more explicit. I wouldn't normally model this kind of rewriting for a student, but here's another version. I took the liberty of shifting pronouns, but wouldn't have to.

  "Landon realizes that Jamie doesn't have much longer. She is so weak she can barely stand up and he has to support her. She has lost so much weight that he compares her to falling leaves. He now realizes that leukemia has taken over her whole body in such a short period of time. She is dying."

  My goal would be to be clear and direct and let the form fit the meaning. Since the meaning itself is inherently moving, we don't need to generate artificial interest.

  I wouldn't deal with this passage, though, as separate from the goals of the paper. I would hope for a connection to the overall goals of the paper, perhaps set up earlier with a strong lead. This passage seems out of the blue, with no strong transition, so it's hard to know what comes before or what comes after. I don't know the writer, whole paper, or assignment.

  I try not to encourage revision of sentences apart from larger concerns.

Craig

Susan van Druten wrote:

There's nothing simple about parallel structure.  Obama's and Silko's parallel structure are purposeful, beautiful, and effective.  My student's mindless repetition of her simple subjects is dull, typical, and uninspired.  There is no point in comparing the two types of repetitions.

But here's an even more intriguing point: you say when Obama and Silko are doing their repetitions we mustn't "dismiss" them as simply parallel.  What does that mean?  What more do these passages do that relates to our discussion about my student's use of repetition?

On May 26, 2009, at 10:35 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:

I find it strange that you think the passages from Obama and Silko are

irrelevant. You can't dismiss them simply as parallel structure. These

are effective passages that repeat simple subjects.

Craig

On May 26, 2009, at 8:20 PM, John Dews-Alexander wrote:

 I'm less interested in how things should work and more interested

in how they actually do work. I'm sorry if I sounded pie in the

skyish.

I agree and gave this group an actual student example.  What plain

language would you say to a junior in high school to help her write

more effectively?  What plain words would you say about this writer's

"verb string."  Remember you have 2 minutes at the most unless you

can convince her to come after school and stay while you explain your

"string" theory.

Landon says Jamie is "lighter than the leaves of a tree that had

fallen in autumn."  He is comparing Jamie’s weight to leaves

falling.  He has really started to notice it that she has become so

sick that she has lost a lot of weight.   He had to support her

because she could barely hold herself up.  He is not only realizing

just her change in weight.  He sees how much her leukemia has taken

over her whole body and in such a short period of time.  He realizes

that she doesn’t have that much longer.

I believe that [focusing on structural variation in sentence-

initial position] can produce unnecessarily complex sentences.

That's just my opinion though. Considering that you don't know me,

my students, or my results, it doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot.

That's the nature of informal, online, listserv discussions, and

I'm fine with that.

Yes, well, there we have it.  You just have an opinion based on

experience.  So do I.

We disagree on this point. No big deal. Please don't take that to

mean that I think you're a bad teacher.

John, are you concerned that I think you are a bad teacher?  Why

bring this up?  It's irrelevant if you are concerned about what

actually works.

John Alexander

Austin, Texas

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Susan van Druten

<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

John, you have actually made my point.

You say you would "work with this writer to subordinate,

coordinate, and complementize/relativize clauses and perhaps to

consider more carefully the semantic weight/information packaging

of verb choice."

If I said what you just said to my students, they would look at me

like I was trying to be condescending.  So, of course, I don't say

that.  Instead I just use plain-speak and ask them to change up

their sentence starts.

Is the student "likely [to] produce confusing sentences

(unnecessarily complex structures) out of a belief that that is

what teachers want"?  No.  I am there in the high school

classroom.  They do not create twisted syntax.  Instead they fix

the core problem.

I have expertise in this area.  I have adjusted my lofty ideas to

reflect what works with my struggling student writers.  You can

keep trying to justify what you think should work, but it conflicts

with what I have experienced.

On May 26, 2009, at 6:48 PM, John Dews-Alexander wrote:

I would not encourage this student to vary sentence openers as

there is no problem with the sentence openers. The writer clearly

has a focused topic in mind that will carry forward as given

information throughout the paragraph (if that is not an

appropriate topic for that length of time, then that is the

problem, not the structure).

I would work with this writer to subordinate, coordinate, and

complementize/relativize clauses and perhaps to consider more

carefully the semantic weight/information packaging of verb choice.

Focusing on sentence opener variation here would seem (to me)

quite a distraction from the real problems that indicate the

maturity of the writing. The writer would not improve the core

problems and would likely produce confusing sentences

(unnecessarily complex structures) out of a belief that that is

what teachers want.

John Alexander

Austin, Texas

On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Susan van Druten

<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Craig, you are ignoring my concern when you continue to bring up

Frost, Obama, and Silko.  We agree that purposeful repetition is

the mark of a mature style.   You should now drop that out of your

argument.  In fact you should have dropped that on after May 18th

when I acknowledged and refuted your point.  I said, "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."

I am teaching students who do not have a mature style.  I went to

school today to find you an example.  Do you or do you not agree

that the writer below could use some advice on changing up her

sentence starts?

Landon says Jamie is "lighter than the leaves of a tree that had

fallen in autumn."  He is comparing Jamie’s weight to leaves

falling.  He has really started to notice it that she has become

so sick that she has lost a lot of weight.   He had to support her

because she could barely hold herself up.  He is not only

realizing just her change in weight.  He sees how much her

leukemia has taken over her whole body and in such a short period

of time.  He realizes that she doesn’t have that much longer.

On May 26, 2009, at 7:47 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Susan,

   I believe our teaching practices should be based on a solid

understanding of how language works. If we tell students that

varying

sentence openings (using something other than the subject as

opening)is

a goal of good writing, then we should find a high number of those

variations in excellent writing. The truth is that we don't.

    As an explanation for your motivation, you mentioned that

students

sometimes keep the same subject for as much as five sentences in a

row. Again, I tried to point out that good writers do this quite

often. I mentioned Frost's "Acquainted with the Night", which starts

every sentence with "I have", copied in the opening to Leslie

Silko's

much anthologized "Yellow Woman" to show that the great majority of

the sentences started with "I", many of them consecutively, and

copied

a passage from Obama's heralded speech on race to show how he

effectively repeats the same subject or same subject opening for

long

stretches of text. I don't mean to imply that you are dealing with

mature writers, but starting sentences with the subject and

repeating

sentence openers can be thought of as the mark of a mature style.

   There are good reasons for this. If you look at information

flow in a

text (given/new), given is almost always first and new is almost

always

last. The most important function of a sentence opener (usually the

subject for good writers) is not variation, but continuity. The

opening

establishes connection with what went before. One obvious way to

accomplish that is to repeat openings. Good writers exploit

repetition

for these purposes. Inexperienced writers tend to move on much too

quickly.

   The one place we agree, I think, is that a number of different

structures can act as the subject of a sentence and students should

have those available as resources. I believe they should be used for

continuity, though, not for variation.

   I think we have gotten confused from time to time about what

kind of

variation we are talking about. A variation of subject is one. A

variation of the kinds of structures that can act as subject is

another. A variation of the kinds of structures that open

sentences is

another.

    Christensen's essay seems to me good argument for expecting

that most

sentences will start with the subject and that when we have

variation

form that (about 25% of the time), those will usually be simple

adverbials.

   As a more direct answer to your question, I believe it is

harmful to

imply to students that good writers try to vary their sentence

openings. I spend more time with my students trying to get them

to see

how good writers use repetition, including a repetition of

subjects, to

build coherence into texts.

   I'm glad you can understand this as a discussion about good

teaching

practices, not a personal criticism.

Craig

 Craig, I'm still not clear on where you stand.  Do you still

believe

it is bad practice for a teacher to show students various ways to

start sentences?  Is it harmful to have them try changing up

sentences on a worksheet?  (I don't know how you got the idea

that I

was requiring them to vary every start in their own essays.)

I enjoy the spirit of the conversation.  Just because I thought you

were dismissing my argument and called you on it doesn't mean I am

not enjoying myself.

Susan

On May 24, 2009, at 9:56 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Susan,

   I believe that mentoring young people on their path toward a

mature

literacy is a very difficult process. As teachers, we should

all be

constantly examining and refining our practices. We are far,

far from

perfect in what we do. That is at least equally true of our

profession

as a whole. We need to ask ourselves, over and over again, if

what we

are doing is best for the students we are serving. Once you

posted to

the list that you ask students to vary their sentence openings

to keep

from being boring, that advice became subject to the kind of

conversation we do routinely on this list. It has nothing at

all to do

with whether any of us believe you are a nazi or a bad teacher. We

simply need to be able to consider these approaches with an

open mind.

I hope you can understand that the spirit of conversation was

never

intended to be personal.

   That being said, I would ask you to question seriously

whether the

"style guide" you are using is at all thoughtful or accurate.

It says,

first of all, that students use non-subject openers about 50%

of the

time. I wonder if that is based on any kind of scholarly study.

The

studies refered to on list recently seem to show that a

professional

writer opens with the subject much MORE than that, at an

average of

about 75%. The lowest total in Christensen's study was 60%, the

highest

about 90% for acclaimed professional writers. If that is the case,

then

students already vary sentence openings more than mature

writers. I

would add that the writers in the study were successful, not

boring.

   I would recommend a book like Martha Kolln's "Rhetorical

Grammar" as a

more linguistically sound source of advice.

   But above all, don't be shy about joining our talk. I

apologize if

anything I said made you feel as if you were under attack as a

teacher.

As a profession, we are still a long way from having fully

grounded,

effective, widely accepted practices. We need to be respectful

of each

other as we work that out, and I apologize again for any failures

on my

part to do that.

Craig

 Jean, I give them a handout that can be found in many style

guides.

I'm pasting it in.  Sorry if some of you thought I was a writing

Nazi, who demanded students never dare repeat the same

starting word

in an entire essay.  Yikes, I should have experienced lots more

outrage, tar, and feathers!

Sentence Beginnings

Vary the beginnings of your sentences.

Most writers begin about half their sentences with the subject—

far

more than the number of sentences begun in any other way.  But

overuse of the subject-first beginnings results in monotonous

writing.  Below are several ways to vary the beginnings of your

sentences.

WORDS

Two adjectives:               Angry and proud, Alice resolved to

fight back.

An adverb:                     Suddenly a hissing and

clattering came

from the heights around us.

A connecting word:          For students who have just

survived the

brutal college-entrance marathon, this competitive atmosphere

is all

too familiar.  But others, accustomed to being stars in high

school,

find themselves feeling lost in a crowd of overachievers.

An interrupting adverb:     A healthy body, however, is just as

important as a healthy mind.

A series of words:            Light, water, temperature,

minerals—

these affect the health of plants.

  PHRASES

A connecting phrase:        If the Soviet care and feeding of

athletes at times looks enviable, it is far from perfect.  For

one

thing, it can be ruthless.

A prepositional phrase:     Out of necessity they stitched all of

their secret fears and lingering childhood nightmares into this

existence.

An infinitive:                  To be really successful, you will

have to be trilingual: fluent in English, Spanish, and computer.

A gerund:                       Maintaining a daily exercise

program

is essential.

A participle:                   Looking out of the window high

over

the state of Kansas, we see a pattern of a single farmhouse

surrounded by fields, followed by another single homestead

surrounded

by fields.

An appositive:                A place of refuge, the Mission

provides

food and shelter for Springfield's homeless.

An absolute:                   His fur bristling, the cat went

on the

attack.

  CLAUSES

An adverbial clause:         When you first start writing—and

I think

it's true for a lot of beginning writers—you’re scared to

death that

if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never

going to

show up again.

An adjective clause:         The freshman, who was not a

joiner of

organizations, found herself unanimously elected president of

a group

of animal lovers.

A noun clause:                Why earthquakes occur is a

questions to

ask a geologist.

On May 22, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Jean Waldman wrote:

Susan,

This is the first time you mentioned that you teach the students

HOW to vary their sentences.  I was under the impression that

you

just demand that they do it and grade them on whether they do

it.

What method do you use to teach the different possible

variations?

Jean Waldman

----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan van Druten"

<[log in to unmask]>

To: <[log in to unmask]>

Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 7:21 PM

Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions

Craig, I just don't understand your logic.  You were asked to

evaluate two passages that contained the same content.  The

first

had

boring sentence starts and the second had variation.  You

admitted

the second had "more flexibility" but then concluded that it

doesn't

make it better and went on to speak for Ed that he couldn't

possibly

believe the varying sentence starts made it better.

That struck me as arrogantly dismissive.

Do you have any proof that teaching students how to vary their

sentence starts compromises their ability to write with

coherence?

It seems like such a  stretch  Varying a sentence start doesn't

force

students to vary the subject.  If varying sentence starts

doesn't

lead to incoherence, would you change your stance?  Or do you

have

other concerns as well.

Susan

On May 20, 2009, at 9:55 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Susan,

   I'm sorry if I come across as arrogantly dismissive. I don't

mean to

be. I do believe that teaching students to vary sentence

openings is

not a good idea, and I have given that a great deal of study

and

thought.  I believe that the conventional advice to vary

sentence

openings is not based on close observation of how language

works in

effective texts. I'm not sure why you would say those points

are

irrelevant. Asking students to vary sentence openings may

have the

effect of pushing them further away from coherence--at best, a

distraction from more relevant choices.

   Here's a opening passage--chosen in part because I already

have  it in

an electronic file to copy from--from Leslie Silko's "Yellow

woman".

It's a short story, so the sentence openings are more

typical of

narrative than of a more expository text, but the sentence

openings  are

quite unremarkable, almost entirely pronouns. I hope we can

base

the

discussion on observations of effective writing, not on

personal

preferences.

  Yellow Woman    (Leslie Silko)

    My thigh clung to his with dampness, and I watched the sun

rising up

through the tamaracks and willows. The small brown water birds

came to

the river and hopped across the mud, leaving brown scratches

in the

alkali-white crust. They bathed in the river silently. I

could hear

the water, almost at our feet where the narrow fast channel

bubbled

and washed green ragged moss and fern leaves. I looked at him

beside

me, rolled in the red blanket on the white river sand. I

cleaned

the

sand out of the cracks between my toes, squinting because the

sun was

above the willow trees. I looked at him for the last time,

sleeping on

the white river sand.

     I felt hungry and followed the river south the way we had

come  the

night before, following our footprints that were already

blurred by

lizard tracks and bug trails. The horses were still lying

down, and

the black one whinnied when he saw me but he did not get up—

maybe it

was because the corral was made out of thick cedar branches

and the

horse had not yet felt the sun like I had. I tried to look

beyond the

pale red mesas to the pueblo. I knew it was there, even if I

could

not see it, on the sandrock hill above the river, the same

river

that

moved past me now and had reflected the moon last night.

    The horse felt warm underneath me. He shook his head and

pawed

the

sand. The bay whinnied and leaned against the gate trying to

follow,

and I remembered him asleep inside the red blanket beside the

river. I

slid off the horse and tied him close to the other horse, I

waked

north with the river again, and the white sand broke loose in

footprints over footprints.

    “Wake up.”

    He moved in the blanket and turned his face to me with his

eyes  still

closed. I knelt down to touch him.

    “I’m leaving.”

    He smiled now, eyes still closed. “You are coming with me,

remember?”

He sat up now with his bare dark chest and belly in the sun.

    “Where?”

    “To my place.”

    “And will I come back?”

     He pulled his pants on. I walked away from him, feeling

him

behind me

and smelling the willows.

    “Yellow woman,” he said.

    I turned to face him. “Who are you?” I asked.

    He laughed and knelt on the low, sandy bank, washing his

face

in the

river. “Last night you guessed my name, and you knew why I had

come.”

     I stared past him at the shallow moving water and tried to

remember

the night, but I could only see the moon in the water and

remember

his warmth around me.

 Craig

Craig

I sounded snarky in my last email.  I'm sorry for that.  But

you

really are arrogantly dismissive of something I teach my

students as

a mini-lesson but do not require them to do in their

essays.  I

have

seen better writing from them, and it is annoying to have such

strong

evidence be dismissed without much thought.  I do think you

have not

thought this through.

Susan

On May 20, 2009, at 7:57 PM, Susan van Druten wrote:

On May 20, 2009, at 1:09 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:

You can certainly make the judgment that Ed's version

shows more

flexibility on the part of the writer, but it doesn't

make it a

better essay,

Craig, it's clearly better.  You offer no evidence for why

it is

worse or even equal.  Own up, dude:  It is clearly better,

but,

yes, it still sucks.  Your tower is showing.

The rest of your argument is irrelevant.  You are

preaching to

the

choir.  We do know what makes a good essay.  We know that

varying

sentence starts is not a panacea.

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