Gee, thanks, Ed. The material is a supplemental handout. We do other 
work in class and from the assigned textbook readings. The handout is 
expanded in the textbook I'm writing. There, I give more examples and we 
work with some real text.

I haven't worked much with students' own writing. I find that their 
product is generally too full of stuff that is advanced, and they get 
confused. I'm inspired to give it a try, given that you have said you 
have success with it. So maybe I will try that this quarter. But I teach 
30 students at a time, over ten weeks, and it's not a composition 
course; it's not even only grammar. Syntax is a couple of weeks of the 
ten. The rest is phonetics, phonology, word structure, language 
acquisition, and dialect and language diversity. Try getting deep into 
any of that in ten weeks.

So, if I give a simple definition, it's simplistic. If I give a more 
elaborate definition, it's too complicated and theoretical. If I stick 
to basic concepts, which you mentioned in your post, then it's too 
simplistic. If I delve into the true variability in grammar, I'm being 
too theoretical. Where's the happy medium, Ed?

Can you provide me with an example of a definition that is not sterile? 
What's the difference between sterile and straigtforward? I don't want 
to embroider my definitions on an outline handout. What does KISS stand 
for, after all?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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