To: Janet Bone and Jane Picard (and any other interested parties): Last week I posted a suggestion for dealing with comma splices--to use either controlled composition or model sentences. Janet and Jane wrote and asked for more information about these ideas and also what a t-unit is. A t-unit is a term developed for composition research. If I remember correctly, it means "minimal terminable unit" and is a short-hand way to refer to the smallest unit that could be a complete, grammatical sentence--i.e., a single independent clause along with any dependent clauses or other modifers attached to it. A compound sentence consists of two t-units, and a comma splice consists of two t-units that have been joined by only a comma. While one wouldn't use a term like t-unit with students, it is not clear what term should be used instead. Last week I overheard a teacher explaining that a comma splice involved joining two independent clauses with a comma, but it seemed clear to me that this explanation was little help to the 9th graders in the class. The many examples the teacher provided seemed more useful. The teacher provided example sentences showing the various correct (preferred?) ways to join two t-units and asked the students to write their own imitations of the examples. This is roughly what I mean by using model sentences except that the teacher didn't ask that the imitations be grammatically similar to the originals. She was happy if the items on both sides of the connector were t-units. It remains to be seen, of course, whether the ability of students to imitate the models translates into fewer comma splices in their writing. The other method, controlled composition, was originally developed for ESL writing classes and then was adapted for native speakers of English. I have never seen a version for ESL, but I collected several controlled composition textbooks for regular composition classes. My sense is that the method has now fallen out of favor, for I have heard little about it lately. Perhaps this is because of the general reaction in composition theory against anything labeled as a "exercise (an OVER-reaction, in my opinion) or because of the generally uninspiring quality of the writing in some of the textbooks. In any case, I was telling one of my MAT-level classes about the various kinds of sentence exercises that had been tried in composition (sentence combining, the Christensen method, etc.), and one of the students became intrigued with controlled composition. He decided to experiment with it for his master's project. I suggested that he use _A Creative Copybook_ by Leo Rockas. To my knowledge, this is the most recent textbook in controlled composition. It also uses material from high-quality professional sources for its exercises. I don't want to steal my student's thunder, but he specifically focused on comma splices, and it looks as if controlled composition worked pretty well at helping 9th graders reduce their comma splicing. In Rockas' book, he gives students a passage written in single t-units and asks students first to copy the passage exactly as written. Then he asks them to copy it again, combining certain pairs of t-units into compound sentences as they go. I wish I could give you bibliographical information on the Rockas book and on the other books as well, but I loaned all of my books to my student. Perhaps you can find some examples in your departmental archives. Or perhaps other subscribers on this list can supply some titles. Bill McCleary William J. McCleary Editor: Composition Chronicle Associate Prof. of English Viceroy Publications Coordinator of Secondary English 3247 Bronson Hill Road SUNY at Cortland Livonia, NY 14487 607-753-2076 716-346-6859 [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]