At 10:20 AM 1/11/00 -0800, Edith wrote:

> But exercises like sentence combining of specific
>structures done over and over do work to improve student writing and,
>from what students say, their reading also.

I would like to see some research done on this point.  Anyone know of
anyone who has or could get the funding to follow through on this?

>I think that it is important to note
>that free sentence combining exercises, which do not force the students to
>use a particular syntactic structure, will not improve the students' ability
>to use syntactic structures.

Which is probably why sentence combining did not catch on more strongly,
and may relate to some of the problems that some people have with it.  Just
as the term "grammar" means different things to different people, I suspect
that the term "sentence combining" means different things to different people.

Another approach to the same end is the use of sentence imitation
exercises, whereby students try to come up with sentences that have totally
different words and meanings but the same exact structure as a target
sentence.  It was this exercise that helped me look more carefully at
student's use of structure -- and it seems, their comprehension of
sentences breaks down at about the same place that they become unable to
imitate a model sentence.  I suspect that there are other types of
activities that could do this kind of thing.  I also suspect that students
would benefit from the use of multiple activities that work on the same
goal.  Next time I attempt to use this technique, I plan on alternating it
with sentence combining and decombining exercises, as well as paragraph
writing that requires students to use target structures.


I also think that a systematic approach to teaching sentence syntax, that
uses these kinds of exercises and targeting sentences of gradually
increasing complexity would be most helpful to students, both of their
writing and reading skills.  This kind of approach to grammar would
definitely not be part of the "editing" phase of the writing process, but I
think, could have a positive effect on both writing and reading skills.

For those of us who believe that knowing the terminology is important, (and
it does have a positive effect on discussing grammatical processes), such
an approach could easily be integrated with a naming of concepts as they
are being played with.

Incidentally, this kind of language play is much more fun than the
traditional grammar exercises, and helps develop a different kind of
understanding of grammatical concepts.

However, I also believe that a modified form of sentence mapping can be
helpful, especially with compound structures, to the extent that it gives
kids a visual way of organizing how different portions of the sentence
relate to each other.  Traditional sentence diagramming is too complicated
for my tastes, and doesn't show these kinds of meaning relationships quite
so clearly, but a modified form that shows how phrases are related to the
major subject or verb can be incredibly helpful -- especially to visual
learners.

This last technique has been most helpful to me for teaching students why a
sentence such as "My friend and me went to the store."  Once the compound
subjects are visually separated from the sentence and the kids see that it
is really two sentences, it becomes obvious why "me went to the store" is
not correct.

I do not believe that any of the research that has "proven" grammar
teaching to be ineffective has studied this kind of approach to teaching
grammar.  (In this case, the validity of these studies is a moot point.)


It is true that this deals with writing at the sentence structure, not as a
whole piece, although the imitation of some structures, such as transitions
and cross references, can be tied to the idea of coherence and cohesion
within an overall piece.  Of course, grammar instruction that totally
displaces other aspects of the writing process would prevent kids from
learning to write well, but I doubt that anyone on this list believes that
grammar should be the sum total of a writing program.  That might be one
point of agreement, if people feel a need to agree on something.


Susan Mari Witt



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