Cornelia,
   I still have you penciled in as an important contributor.  One reason 
I wanted to focus directly on fluency/maturity is to sort of take those 
concepts back from misuse, but you need to folloiw your own instincts on 
that. Most importantly, I think, we need to draw a clear disctinction 
between what a mature writer should be able to do and how KNOWING  about 
language enters into that.  In other words, people like Wheeler (the 
minimalists) and whole language people in general seem to obscure the 
issue, and we need to bring  into clearer focus.  Fronting (what a 
functionalist would call marked theme?) is not only a tool in the 
repertoire, but something we should be consciously aware of as we read 
text and produce/revise text. We pick it up nmaturally, but we need to 
know about it in order to use it well.
    The only thing I don't like about "style" as a concept is that it 
tends to be functionally neutral in most people's eyes.  (We want to 
know the style of dress for the dance, but not the style of dress for 
plowing the field or, for that matter,  the "style" of  plowing.)  Not 
so experienced writers tend to think they can "dress up" their writing 
(correcting and dressing up rather than revising.) They think fancier 
words will make them seem more educated.
   This is, of course, just an attempt at a dialogue.  We need to think 
about, not just what students need to "acquire" in their syntactic 
toolbox, but what it is useful for them to understand about those tools 
as they put them to work.  "Syntactic maturity" gets used by those who 
think of language acquisition as largely unconscious.  (Therefore, you 
don't need to "teach" it. It happnes through exposure.)
    I'm happy you're still on board. Why don't you send a draft of the 
presentation, at least a title and quick description. Should be fun.

Craig

Cornelia Paraskevas wrote:

>Hi--I had emailed you earlier about presenting a short, "working" draft on what exactly constitutes well crafted sentences (I don't particularly like the terms fluency/maturity).  I will be presenting in the ATEG part about stylesheets (how students can assess/evaluate the craftsmanship of their writing and /or that of their favorite writers).  For the PubGram, I thought of presenting the underlying concepts of craft--both syntactically (subordination and consolidation) but also stylistically (fronting, for example).
>Please let me know if you'd like me to do that
>Cornelia
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