On Sat, 15 Mar 1997, REBECCA S. WHEELER wrote: > I'm perplexed at why spelling, punctuation and capitalization should be grouped > with complete sentences and "no run-ons". The former deal with rather > superficial matters of the written (as opposed to spoken) form while the latter > deal with grammaticality and issues of what makes a utterance/grammatical unit > in the language. Mixes apples and oranges, seems to me. I think we all find most areas of writing important: spelling, punctuation, and sentence form. I'm not sure that words like 'superficial' really equate with 'trivial'. In any case, I don't agree that any part of writing is trivial; but I think it is helpful for students to focus on different elements of writing at different points in the process. I think we need to realize _why_ it is that students have trouble with 'conventions': they _aren't_ conventions for the students!! they are conventions for somebody else: a different discourse community that students are supposed to join through their schooling; the community that uses formal, standard, mostly written English with relative fluency and ease. It is very difficult to join a discourse community through classroom lessons and lists of rules. As with any kind of language learning, the learner must be immersed in the target language for many hours a week; this allows the learner to _internalize_ the rules. I believe that most of us who can use formal English fluently learned _most_ of it this way, with occasional help from memorized rules (such as whether to put a period inside or outside of quotation marks). Children are very, very good at internalizing rules. I believe most of the difficulty many children have with learning 'conventions' is the small amount of time per week they spend engaged in reading and writing a variety of texts. I doubt very much that editing alone will allow them to internalize the rules to the point where they can spontaneously produce a good formal text, without the need for much editing. By the time someone reaches college age, if they haven't internalized the 'conventions' of formal English, it's going to be very difficult for them. They are essentially having to learn a second dialect. I also think we need to take a very serious look at the now well-researched differences between writing and speech. Fragments, run-ons, and things like faulty parallelism are not 'ungrammatical' in some absolute sense. Fragments and run-ons are characteristic of speech, where they cause little to no disruption of discourse. They are not acceptable in formal writing, for both stylistic and communicative reasons. In speech, the speaker is available to the hearer to clarify any missed connections among related ideas. In writing, the author is absent, and the reader needs maximum cues as to the connectedness of ideas. Stylistic preferences for rhythm and number of ideas 'packaged' into a given stretch of prose change over time (Old and Middle English had no problem with run-ons, and indeed preferred coordinate over subordinate structures a lot of the time), making run-ons unacceptable. I think yet another factor at work in students' difficulties with 'conventions' is the inevitable changes in the language -- including the formal language -- that are underway, and that are held back only by explicit instruction in the traditions of writing for a particular society. It is clear that our language is changing its subject-verb agreement rules, and also its hyphenation and apostrophe-use rules (again, look back at earlier stages of English, such as colonial American or Early Modern, of Shakespeare's time for some astonishing differences). Even the top-notch students in my courses consistenlty make certain 'errors' now, and I am sure that we will soon all give up on those to focus on more egregious ones. I think the most important thing to do in writing classes is to focus on writing as an exchange of meaning, and to work very explicitly with students on how every aspect of their writing -- word choice, punctuation, and sentence structure -- either facilitates or obstructs the passage of the writer's meaning to the mind of the reader. We also need to make them aware of writing and reading as two of the many ways school expands their horizons and allows them to interact with ever wider audiences of people. And yes, I believe we should talk explicitly with them about generational differences in writing conventions caused by language change, and that sometimes the reason why something is or is not acceptable is merely 'tradition'. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics ~ English Department, California Polytechnic State University ~ San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 ~ Tel. (805)-756-2184 E-mail: [log in to unmask] ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~