I know that the Dougals Biber group in England is accumulating a huge
database of texts of all kinds which is making it possible to show
grammar/text correlations with probabilities calculated. There is certainly
no 1:1 absolute relation, but there are just as certainly quite high
probabilities that certain linguistic features will show up in certain kinds
of text in a certain likely order -- which would indicate that, for writing
a certain kind of text, a student would benefit from knowing how to produce
the correlated features in the expected order.

Judy





At 01:33 AM 6/24/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>        Johanna mentioned an idea that I agree has profound future
>implications:
>
>
>        "There are areas of disagreement which I believe are of profound
>importance in creating an effective program, though. Paramount among
>them perhaps is whether or not we can find regular relationships between
>sentence grammar and text organization. I think pretty much everybody
>would value a teaching approach that puts grammar squarely in the
>context of writing, and such relationships could be of tremendous value
>in doing this."
>
>
>        This concept fascinates me. I know that Christensen, Coe,
>Anderson, and  Rodgers have pioneered various ideas for extending the
>concept of grammar beyond the sentence to a grammar of passages.
>Also, Jon Franklin in his book Writing for Story talks about this
>interrelationship and Mina Shaughnessy mentions this in passing as
>the "essential"  element of a mature style.  Is anyone aware of
>research by any other authors?
>
>
>--- Harry
>
>
>
>
>        Dance like nobody is watching. Love like you'll never get hurt.
>
>        Johanna mentioned an idea that I agree has profound future
implications:
>
>
>        "There are areas of disagreement which I believe are of profound
>importance in creating an effective program, though. Paramount among
>them perhaps is whether or not we can find regular relationships between
>sentence grammar and text organization. I think pretty much everybody
>would value a teaching approach that puts grammar squarely in the
>context of writing, and such relationships could be of tremendous value
>in doing this."
>
>
>        This concept fascinates me. I know that Christensen, Coe, Anderson,
and  Rodgers have pioneered various ideas for extending the concept of
grammar beyond the sentence to a grammar of passages. Also, Jon Franklin in
his book Writing for Story talks about this interrelationship and Mina
Shaughnessy mentions this in passing as the "essential"  element of a mature
style.  Is anyone aware of research by any other authors?
>
>
>--- Harry
>
>
>
>
>
>        Dance like nobody is watching. Love like you'll never get hurt.


Judith Diamondstone  (732) 932-7496  Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183