It appears I have a reading problem.  Craig tells us:

 Believe it or not, the author of the article writes that the teachers found many students couldn't write sentences with simple conjunctions like "but" or "or." 

That is hard to believe, so I looked at the article.   Here is what I found:

1) A history teacher got more granular. He pointed out that the students’ sentences were short and disjointed. What words, Scharff asked, did kids who wrote solid paragraphs use that the poor writers didn’t? Good essay writers, the history teacher noted, used coordinating conjunctions to link and expand on simple ideas—words like for, and, nor, but,or, yet, and so. 

2) The Hochman Program, as it is sometimes called, would not be un­familiar to nuns who taught in Catholic schools circa 1950. Children do not have to “catch” a single thing. They are explicitly taught how to turn ideas into simple sentences, and how to construct complex sentences from simple ones by supplying the answer to three prompts—but, because, and so. They are instructed on how to use appositive clauses to vary the way their sentences begin. 

One HISTORY teacher found weak students did use but or or.  No examples are given.  By the way, Flower, in her foundational paper on the writer-based texts and reader-based texts found that developing writers overuse AND.  It is the weakest connection possible.  My weakest college students use AND when a more logical connection would be more appropriate.

In the 1950s children were given prompts that required them use but, because and so.  

(An aside: How does any sentence begin with an appositive clause?  Can someone give us example of such an sentence?)

I can understand why students with very weak reading ability cannot understand or use the word although.  I find NOTHING in the piece (again I may have missed something) that claims these students COULDN'T write sentences with "but" or "or".

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri 
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