Bob,
    I'm also between semesters and away from campus until next week. I did
collect a few for a conference presentation I did awhile back and I
can remember some of those in part because I use them in classes. One
is the "Your family will always be there for you when you need them"
example I already gave. Another is "The character Robert in
"Cathedral" shows that a blind person can do anything a person with
sight can do." Another is "Society says that a woman's place is in the
home." I think anyone who has taught beginning writers will recognize
these patterns.
   It's an interesting exercise in class to take a statement like those
and begin the process of qualifying them down. As you do so, they
become so much more interesting. "I believe my parents would do
anything they could for me, but now I'm up here on my own." Or "It's
hard for my parents to help me because they don't speak English well."
"My dad's in jail and Mom has to work two jobs."
   You and I would probably disagree on the role of grammar in this
process, but I think this is at the heart of what happens when we try
to work with beginning writers. They have a perspective to bring which
is sometimes very valuable, but that also means admitting that they
aren't total experts.

Craig


> Craig,
>
> This helps somewhat, but you seem to have examples from actual student
> writing that you are responding to.
>
> It would be useful to see some of these examples.  I understand you are
> traveling so this is not possible.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 01/09/11 1:49 PM >>>
> Bob,
>     What I mean by "hedging" is in progress thinking, but it would take us
> in the direction of thinking like a scientist and being careful about
> overgeneralizing and leaping to conclusions. It's common for a young
> writer to write something like "Your parents will always be there for
> you when you need them," which is, of course, not at all the case.
> Sometimes I'll say something like "You know, there are people in this
> program who are wards of the state for various reasons." It's not that
> the statement is wrong or that they don't have something real and
> substantial they want to talk about, but they lack experience thinking
> about how they know what they know and perhaps don't know how to
> qualify themselves as something less than an omniscient expert.
>    I'm amused when the weather person says there's a fifty percent chance
> of snow and then someone says later that they got it wrong.
>    I think students don't always listen well to each other,and sometimes
> that carries over to critical reading. They want to argue for a point
> of view and that can keep them from fully attending to what someone
> else is saying. (We have plenty of evidence of that on list.) If a
> student is to develop into a strong academic writer, they need to be
> able to approach it dialogically: summarizing, quoting respectfully,
> agreeing and disagreeing (and sometimes both.) At the most professional
> end, that means being able to do a review of the literature and to
> position your own work within the ongoing work of the discipline.
>     I know I'm not connecting that directly to grammar, but I have to
> catch an airport shuttle. Hope that helps.
>
> Craig >
>
> I hate to change the topic slightly, but want some elaboration on this.
>> Craig writes:
>>
>> Many students have a hard time learning how to hedge what they are
>> saying
>> and learning how to enter into a conversation.
>>
>> ***
>> Craig, could you give examples of what you mean by this?
>>
>> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>
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