I don't think that everything that gets called "training wheels" in education is bad. On the contrary, "training wheels" are often used as an example of the important educational techniques called "scaffolding." In scaffolding, an instructor offers modeling, guided practice and finally independent practice to help a student master tasks

 I wouldn't want to tell students that using a large amount of sentence starter variation is a hallmark of good writers.

-----Original Message-----

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Susan van Druten

Sent: Thu 5/28/2009 8:09 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: training wheels

So weak writers suffer from training wheels?

A lovely metaphor which I started and to which I subscribe.  So...let'e be clear, what are all the training wheels you abhor?  Sentence starts has been deemed damaging.  Let's mix metaphors and open up the spigots.  What else?  What other tactics that are commonly found in writing texts do you find harmful?

Have at it.

But you do know what the biggest "training wheel" is, don't you?  

I'll give you a hint it has been condemned since the late 70's.  Our district curriculum director won't allow us to purchase books with its name in the title.  And (the dead give away) it's in the name of this listserv.  

Jenkies, how's that for irony?

Hurts, donut?

On May 28, 2009, at 10:52 AM, Craig Hancock wrote:

Brian,

  I just wanted to say that I find your contributions very thoughtful and helpful. I especially like the way you bring this back to the opening discussion, whether weaker writers needed 'training wheels". I would echo what I see as the core of your position: they do more harm than good. 

Craig

O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote: 

Thanks, Susan. Maybe I need to be more clear, too--I didn't mean that boring essays are a short-term problem; I meant that some solutions to the problem of boring essays are short term (or superficial) solutions. As I meant to imply, I read plenty of  boring essays by college students(though I'm sure I read fewer, even as a percentage of my total haul of papers, than high school teachers read--just because my students' high school teachers have done a good job with them). I could come up with silly solutions to this problem--use a world from a funny vocabulary list every few lines, or write in rhyming couplets--which might amuse me (I have a dumb sense of humor) but would probably not make for more effective writing. 

Your solution, on the other hand, isn't silly--after all, good writers do include some variant sentence starts, even if it's only 25% of the time, and it's not outlandish to teach students how good writers go about doing this. I actually do not think that sentence starts and coherence are an either/or--you've made it clear that you teach coherence, and I don't see how that could be totally negated by the little time you spend teaching sentence start variation. At the same time, i would not in any way put coherence and sentence start variation on the same level. Coherence is , pretty much by definition, a fundamental aspect of a reader's experience of a text. Sentence start variation is...not. Most of the time, if a revision with more varied sentence starts is better than the draft, that variation is probably an epiphenomenon of some more significant change--like improved coordination or subordination, or improved topic focus in general. If a student thinks that her revision 

 

is better is simply because she started her sentences in more various ways, she may understand what really made the revision better, and thus she may be less likely to transfer her learning to the next context and do even better in the future. And she may not be helped on the path to the (even) longer-term goal of greater syntactical maturity (as you put it) or greater rhetorical awareness and control (as I put it).

I agree with you that our goal (or, one of our goals) is for our students to produce easy to read and pleasurable,  

informative reading--eventually. But not necessarily while they're in a particular class that we happen to be teaching. Sometimes, as a student experiments with more complex thoughts and expressions, that student's writing may have to get more convoluted before it gets clearer and more pleasureable. I wouldn't want to give the student advice that would privilege a clear and enjoyable product today over a more deliberate and effective writing process tomorrow.

I guess my question for your student would be whether, and why, he or she really wanted to switch the focus of the second sentence of the revision from the Landon's perception to Jamie's condition. Was there a rhetorical purpose, other than simply variation, for switching from "he" to "she" as a subject, only to then switch back again? If so--and there could be such a purpose--great. If not, maybe this revision is one instance where sentence start variation and coherence really did conflict, and I would have favored coherence.

Still, your student is revising and experimenting and certainly not learning a pointless, inflexible rule, like "every sentence must have a different subject."  I don't think the different sides in this Great War of Sentence Starters are really all that far apart. 

Brian

-----Original Message-----

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Susan van Druten

Sent: Wed 5/27/2009 7:40 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions

 

Thanks, Brian, for some insight.  Maybe I need to be more clear about  

how much (how little) I ask students to vary their sentence starts.   

Usually, it occurs when I walk around the room as they are writing.   

I'll read over a shoulder and notice lots of similar sentence starts  

(which are not interesting parallel structure).  I'll mention it to  

them and they'll read it it back and notice how it sounds to them.   

They don't want to sound "head-thumpingly boring to read."  So they  

get it, and they change it on their own, or they'll ask for advice.

"Head-thumpingly boring" essays are short-term problems?

Really??!  Really.  Really??!

Bad writing is a long-term problem, period.  Bad essays are problems  

for a high school teacher who has to read 150.  They are problems for  

a college instructor who doesn't have to read 150.  The amount one  

must read is irrelevant.  There should be no difference of opinion  

between high school or college instructor:  if an essay is boring to  

a high school teacher, it should be boring to a college instructor.   

The boring might come from uninspired sentence starts or from chaotic  

coherence problems.  It doesn't matter what the problem is.  We can  

all spot the problem and help our students with whatever is causing it.

This argument has now shifted to a fallacious either-or. It is simply  

not true that we must pit sentence start variation against  

coherence.  Both are important.

Class size is irrelevant.  An exposure to more writing does not make  

one unable to distinguish easier reading from head-thumping reading.   

The goal is that our students produce easy to read and pleasurable,  

informative reading.

 

Brian asks about my student's revision,  "I'm curious; how might  

the passage's author respond to this kind of advice [show me how  

each sentence connects]?"

   

Brian, that is good advice which often includes considering varying  

sentence starts.  So I do have an answer of sorts.  It's inconclusive  

(it is very hard to get students to revise).  But here is her revision:

Landon is comparing Jamie's weight to leaves falling.  She has become  

so sick that she has lost a lot of weight, and he has really started  

to notice it.  He had to support her as they stood there because she  

could barely hold herself up.  He is not only realizing just her  

change in weight, but it really hits him at this point 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 have better writers than this.  But it's all about taking a writer  

from where she is at and suggesting ideas that her writing shows she  

has not been considering.

Susan

On May 27, 2009, at 8:21 AM, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:

 

It seems like one of the differences of opinion here is what a  

teacher should do with students who "do not have a mature style,"  

as Susan puts it. Should we give them "training wheels" (aka,  

"triage" them, give them "bandaids," etc.) to make their writing  

more presentable in the short term, or should we try to set them on  

a path towards developing a more mature style in the long run?  

These goals don't *necessarily* conflict, but do they "sometimes*  

conflict? And when do they do conflict, which should take priority?  

I say that they do sometimes conflict, and that when they do, long- 

term improvement should take priority.

I believe Susan when she says that her young and struggling writers  

hand in more readable prose when they follow her advice to "change  

up your sentence starters." But I also agree with Craig that having  

been trained this way may make it hard for college writers to think  

in terms of coherence and see the value of repetition. If, as I  

think, both Susan and Craig are right, then the student's short  

term gain (i.e., papers that their high school teachers found a  

little easier and head-thumpingly boring to read) may not have been  

worth their long-term loss (i.e, greater difficulty in ultimately  

attaining a mature style).

Easy for me to say. As a college teacher, I have smaller class  

sizes and fewer classes than Susan, and, by and large, I probably  

read fewer of those head-thumpingly boring papers. (Was that "good"  

repetition or "bad," by the way?)But college teachers, too, face  

tradeoffs between immediate improvement of a paper and long-term  

improvement of a writer. For example, I've had plenty of students-- 

often but not always English Language Learners--who can write  

simple sentence clearly but get very tangled up when they start  

combining clauses. I'm sure none of us would encourage students  

like that to only write in simple sentences. We put up with reading  

convoluted sentences so that students can practice, and eventually  

improve at, coordination and subordination.

"Vary sentences starters," I rush to admit, is not nearly such bad  

advice as "only use simple sentences" would be! The similarity, in  

my mind, is that neither piece of advice acts as a scaffold to help  

eventually students reach "mature" levels of rhetorical awareness  

and control.

At least I'm probably getting Susan and John to agree; they're  

probably both thinking that I'm being too abstract and talking  

about what should be, not what is! So I'll say how I might respond  

to the student who wrote the "Landon says Jamie..." paragraph:

"[Student], when I read this, I feel like each thought is separate  

from the next, and there's nothing to show me how they connect,  

which is more important than the other, which depends on which. One  

of the ways that writers fix that kind of problem for their readers  

is by combining sentences. Before next class, can you try a few  

different ways of combining those seven sentences into three to  

five sentences, and tell me which way you like best and why? If you  

take another look at that "sentence combining" chapter we read,  

that will make this easier."

The results would be less predictible then if I just told the  

student to very sentence starters, but at least I'd be asking the  

student to realize that he or she has stylistic choices to make and  

to think about the effects of those choices on readers. And  

consistently asking students to do that can make a difference over  

the long one.

But Susan, I defer to you as an expert on pre-college writers, and  

I'm curious; how might the passage's author respond to this kind of  

advice?

Brian

Brian O'Sullivan, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of English

Director of the Writing Center

St. Mary's College of Maryland

Montgomery Hall 50

18952 E. Fisher Rd.

St. Mary's City, Maryland

20686

240-895-4242

-----Original Message-----

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of  

Susan van Druten

Sent: Tue 5/26/2009 8:56 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Sentences beginning with conjunctions

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]> <mailto:[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"

   

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/

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/

 

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/

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/ 

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/