Hi Craig,
Well, of course they are strategies (a word I prefer to "tricks") to avoid writing errors--that's what students who come to the writing center are seeking when they ask for help recognizing sentences.
And all the other things you say are also absolutely true. The frame sentence could be shorter . . . I like the longer construction because it requires a clause, whereas the "I believe that _____" could be filled by a noun phrase ("I believe that man over there.") And it won't work with questions or commands, but I honestly don't think I have ever seen a fragmented question or command "in the wild." I guess perhaps an emphatic question or command could be a fragment, e.g., "'The main reason was cognitive dissonance,' the author claimed. Cognitive dissonance? That's not at all correct." But those sort of constructions are obviously purposeful so students don't tend to request help avoiding them, and readers/teachers' objections would be more likely to informality than "fragment."
For the question strategy, students can add a do-aux because that's a normal step in forming a question. Most of the fragments a writing center would deal with wouldn't be of the "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" variety, they would be subordinate clauses, but if a writer did try to add a different aux to "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" when turning it into a question, a writing center consultant would likely say, "Good for adding that 'were'; if you add that to the statement form, that'll keep it from being a fragment."
The "stare test" is my least favorite, for the reasons you mention, but students like it, and it is useful in the context of student papers where sentences such as "She did it" are less common.
Anyway, I thought you were interested in how sentences are addressed at the college level more broadly, not just in how we might define "sentence."
I think it is unlikely that many classes address the abstract definition of a sentence in the ways that it seems you're seeking because, to put it bluntly, what would be the point? Most of the writing students produce is comprised of sentences. (In fact, that's even true for my first-grader, who just gave me a note that read, charmingly, "Marry me, Mommy. Love, your daughter.") Writing teachers don't need to spend time teaching what a sentence is in a writing class, any more than they need to teach how to form a question, or how to distinguish between when to use "some" and when to use "any."
Those of us who want to teach students a more formal understanding of a sentence, either in a writing class or in a grammar class, would probably use (or at least, I use) that old standby: S = NP + VP. What would a different definition of the sentence accomplish that S = NP +VP does not? (That's a genuine "I'd like to know more about what you're working on" question, not a, "why are you bothering" question.)
As far as my comment about "complete thoughts," I was making a joke: obviously, if I go to the trouble of expressing something, that "something" is a complete thought. Even something as short as, "Because I said so." or "Really." is a complete thought; after all, if I thought it was incomplete, I would add to it. I didn't read Grice for nuthin'. :)
Beth
>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 09/21/09 10:12 PM >>>
Beth,
I think these would all fall in the category of "tricks" to help
students avoid writing errors rather than steps toward a deeper
understanding of what constitutes a sentence. I don't mean that as a
direct criticism since we have decided that conscious understanding is
not necessary or particularly valuable. My point, I think, is that
these softer explanations may mislead in a serious way.
The "I believe" construct can be shortened down: "I believe [that]..."
You can also do it with "understand" or "know". It doesn't work for
questions or commands. "I believe that be sure to vote on Tuesday." "I
believe will you go to the party?" My own first exposure, I think, was
from Rei Noguchi.
What is it about declarative sentences that they can be believed or
understood or known?
I have never seen the question approach. Are students told they can add
words? Otherwise, we would have a problem with simple present or simple
past. She walked the dog. Walked she the dog? We can't make it a
question without adding a finite to the front of the clause. (Did she
walk the doag?)What would happen with "Chestnuts roasting over an open
fire"? If we add an auxiliary to that, it might seem like a sentence.
(Did chestnuts roast or were chestnuts roasting?)
I'm not sure all your written thoughts are complete thoughts unless you
mena that you naturally write complete sentences rather than fragments.
In isolation, students have trouble with things like "She did it." It
certainly seems incomplete outside of context. "I have something to
tell you." "Here's another issue." If we apply just a commplete thought
test, won't these seem incomplete? For coherence sake, don't we need an
overlap of meaning?
Craig
Hi Craig,
>
> I agree on the marginal utility of the "complete thought" definition. I
> don't know about anyone else, but pretty much all of my written thoughts
> are complete thoughts. :) Writing centers sometimes use these additional
> strategies:
>
> * Turn it into a written question--can you do that without leaving words
> out? (e.g., *Was he one of the first ones to do so because? shows that
> "Because he was one of the first ones to do so" is not a sentence)
>
> * frame sentence ("they refused to believe the fact that _______" and if
> your group of words fits in the blank, it's a sentence)
>
> * stare test (if you walk up to someone and say those words, will they
> stare at you waiting for you to finish? e.g., "Because he was one of the
> first ones to do so." huh?)
>
> Unfortunately, I can't cite a source for these but I'll bet you could find
> them on the Purdue OWL or other wctr website. At least some of them may
> come from Martha Kolln's text, even.
>
> Beth
>
>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 9/21/2009 1:02 PM >>>
> I'm working on a project that starts with a critique of current
> (school based) descriptions and definitions of the sentence, but it
> occurs to me that I may be unaware of practices in other parts of the
> country.
> The most prevalent definition I run into from students starting
> college in New York state is "a sentence is a group of words that
> expresses a complete thought". This is echoed in "Writing Talk", 5th
> edition, 2009, Winkler and McCuen-Metherell, (just sent me by a
> publisher, so I'm using it as a representative text for college level)
> who follow that up with "This completeness is what your speaker's ear
> uses to recognize a sentence" (p. 49), which fairly nicely frames the
> approach--not a full description of the sentence, but an attempt to
> awaken the student writers' intuitive feel for minimally necessary forms.
> The other definition/description I get is that "a sentence is a group
> of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period,
> question mark, or exclamation point", which would seem to grant the
> writer discretion in deciding what constitutes a sentence (complete
> thought or not.)
> The point I'm trying to make (at least at the start) is that these
> approaches have limited utility and may be deeply misleading for anyone
> hoping to push toward a deeper understanding.
> But am I missing something? Are any of you aware of school based
> approaches that take a different tack?
>
> Craig
>
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