Ed,

Thanks for your long response and for the links. I'll cruise around.

A note on the tag questions: I don't use them to decide sentencehood 
because of the very example you give of the "because" clause. I use it 
as a subject-finding device.

The reason I feel it important to teach my students terminology is, to 
look at the purely practical reasons, that they will encounter them and 
have to teach them in their own classes when they become teachers; the 
state standards require this. But I do feel that there is intrinsic 
value in being comfortable with the terms -- it gives you a vocabulary 
for talking about language in your writing or anyone else's.

I have long been interested in gathering and examining student writing 
from various levels. I once made a brief foray into trying to diagnose 
what was grammatically and lexically infelicitous in one student's 
essay, and I didn't get very far, mostly because of time constraints. 
You pick certain projects, and have to focus on those. I wish I had 
students who were fluent enough in grammar to do research in this for my 
classes -- e.g., collecting and comparing the syntax in essays from, 
say, 3rd-graders vs. 5th-graders. None (or very, very, very few) of my 
students knows grammar well enough!!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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/