00001.tif

PDF

Download

Open document

Transcript (if available)

Content A RHETORIC OF COMPOSITION:
THEORY INTO PRACTICE
by
Patricia Yenney Murray
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY .
(English)
January 1980
C opyright © P a tr ic ia Y enney M urray 1980
UMI Number: D P23075
All rights reserved
INFORMATION TO ALL U SER S
The quality of this reproduction is d ep en d en t upon th e quality of th e copy subm itted.
In the unlikely ev en t that the author did not sen d a com plete m anuscript
and there are m issing p a g e s, th e s e will be noted. Also, if m aterial had to be rem oved,
a note will indicate the deletion.
Dissertation Publishing
UMI D P23075
Published by P roQ uest LLC (2014). Copyright in the D issertation held by the Author.
Microform Edition © P roQ uest LLC.
All rights reserved. This work is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United S ta te s C ode
ProQ uest LLC.
789 E ast E isenhow er Parkw ay
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 4 8 1 0 6 - 1346
UNIVERSITY O F S O U T H E R N CALIFORNIA
T H E G R A D U A T E S C H O O L
U N IV E R S IT Y PA R K
L O S A N G E L E S , C A L IF O R N IA 9 0 0 0 7
This dissertation, written by
Eatnicia..Ienney..Hur.r.ay.................
under the direction of h.&C.... Dissertation Com
mittee, and approved by all its members, has
been presented to and accepted by The Graduate
School, in partial fulfillment of requirements of
the degree of *
D O C T O R O F P H I L O S O P H Y
Dean
Date<9M^JU^.^3..,jl2X-
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
Chairman
-Ph. J).
E
'%o
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ........... 1
Chapter
I. THE "CURRENT-TRADITIONAL" MODEL- ............... 3
II. THE "NEW" MODEL FOR COMPOSITION ............. 24
PART 1
An Overview.................................. 24
Roots for the New Model: Its Theoretical
B a s e s ...................................... 26
The Importance of Invention................. 29
The Modes of Discourse....................... 33
Psycholinguistics: Reading Theory ........... 40
The Matter of S t y l e ......................... 50
Language as Human Action.............. 66
PART 2
The Program Base: Composition as Process . . 77
Theory into Practice......................... 9 3
Prewriting.................................. 93
Writing............ 125
Rewriting..................................12 7
Why Write? Some Philosophical Justifications 131
III. DEVELOPMENT OF A PRACTICAL RHETORIC .......... 150
The Proposal and Shape of the Series...........153
From Proposal to Scope and Sequence...........169
The Scope and Sequence..........................172
Validation.......................................184
Problems and Resolutions in Developing
a Practical Rhetoric ....................... 188
Conclusions.................................... 198
ii
Chapter
IV. THE PROBLEM OF VALIDATION........................206
Introduction.............. 206
Validating a Practical Rhetoric: Series
Field Test D a t a .............................. 207
Validating a Program: The Huntington Beach
Union High School District D a t a ............. 219
Data Available in the Professional
Literature.................................... 227
Remaining Problems ........................... 245
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................... 257
APPENDICES
A. HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT,
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION REPORT ................. 269
B. REPORT ON PROJECT LITERACY, A PILOT PROGRAM FOR
THE TESTING AND REMEDIATION OF WRITING SKILLS . 282
C. SCOPE AND SEQUENCE FOR THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE
AND COMPOSITION.................................. 321
D. SALES FEATURES OR CRITERIA FOR THE SKILLS OF
LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION ....................... 364
E. FINAL ORGANIZATION: TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR
THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION...........370
iii
INTRODUCTION
The current crisis in education serves to force
teachers, administrators, school districts, and others in
terested in literacy to attend to long-standing problems in
teaching composition. The crisis itself has caused uncer
tainty and confusion in the profession. But it is not true,
as news accounts and talk show participants seem to believe,
that a "cure" for what ails students exists only in simple
remedies such as those commonly called "the basics." Nor
is it true that the discipline lacks a background, based
upon substantial research, from which to develop a contem
porary model for teaching writing at all levels. Indeed,
recent publications such as Research on Composing; Points
of Departure' * ' point to the proliferation of projects and
publications that examine discourse theory, methods of
teaching composition, and basic assumptions about the writ
ing process. It is true, of course, that the reflected
current interest in the composing process and how best to
teach it raises further specific questions which researchers
must pursue. The fact that much remains to be done perhaps
falsely suggests that we do not yet know enough to formu
late a comprehensive program for teaching writing.
This examination of the rhetoric of written composition
1
will develop and describe a sound, modern, comprehensive
theoretical background that exists now and from which we
can construct a workable composition program. Research in
the disciplines of rhetoric, linguistics, and literature,
especially in the last two decades, has produced a wealth
of data regarding and insights into the language process.
The conceptual background that emerges from research can be
turned into a viable composition program— not a fragmented
program, but a composite one made up of the most useful
contributions of psychology, linguistics, literary criti
cism, reading theory, grammar, and rhetoric. In fact, data
and theories from these related disciplines themselves
imply practice. Since the thrust of this paper is to show
how methodology relates to theory, I will present a discus
sion of what practice should be in order to be most effec
tive, and in the process will develop a model for a compre
hensive composition program.
2
*
CHAPTER I
THE "CURRENT-TRADITIONAL" MODEL
Teachers of composition have been guided since the
beginning of the twentieth century by what Thomas Kuhn has
called a "paradigm" or way of seeing and acting upon real-
2
ity. Kuhn describes a paradigm as a system of widely
shared belief s., methods, and values common to the practi
tioners of a particular discipline- It is so deeply im
planted in members of the discipline that it achieves the
status of tacit knowledge. A paradigm includes the specific
elements included in or excluded from the discipline, the
content and materials taught or ignored, methods and sys
tems of organization, and the kinds and direction of re
search held important. Kuhn's work aimed to outline and
%
explain changes in the sciences, but his term can be adapted
to the discipline of composition usefully, for it gives us
a way of looking into our subject.
If we look at the paradigm that has governed the
teaching of composition for most of this century and still
governs it to a great extent, we find its most significant
feature to be that of emphasizing the product of composi
tion. This emphasis in turn both produces and reflects
3
other features: the practice of parsing sentences; analyz
ing paragraphs; classifying modes of discourse as descrip
tion, narration, exposition, and persuasion; analyzing and
practicing the mastery of sentence style; emphasis on ar
rangement; concern with correctness (editing skills and
usage) according to a general standard set by the educated
elite. Grammar and usage are taught prescriptively; knowl
edge of the construction of one's language is considered
an important adjunct to and aid in writing educated prose.
Content and organization, not invention or audience, are
featured concerns of the textbooks that preserve this
paradigm.
Kuhn points out that a paradigm, or disciplinary ma
trix, is the joint product of a community. In addition, a
paradigm is transmitted through education, with language as
an important transmitting device. The current-traditional
paradigm in composition is recorded, preserved, and trans
mitted not only through members of a disciplinary community,
but also through textbooks used in educating writers about
the skills of composing. Two popular contemporary text
books, John Warriner's English Grammar and Composition (a
series for secondary school students) and Frederick Crews'
The Random House Handbook (a college text), exemplify the
3
current-traditional model of composition. A brief look at
these specific instructional guides and their historical
roots in rhetoric will serve to establish the old paradigm
4
in composition and provide a contrast to the emerging new
one which promises the base for a contemporary composition
program.
The current-traditional model reflects rhetoric’s
classical concerns with invention, arrangement, and style.
The modes of discourse are classified as description, nar
ration, argumentation, and exposition. Crews explains the
modes as "traditional and useful" types which correspond
"to four basic functions of prose: description, or pictur-
ing; narration, or telling; exposition, or explaining; and
4
argument, or convincing." Warriner does not specify the
modes, but in a chapter on Specific Writing Assignments, he
discusses description of a character, the essay of opinion,
limited and extended definition essays, and the process
paper. Instruction on using vivid details and capitalizing
upon the senses is included in the chapter on Creative
Writing, where the writer's aim is primarily self-expres
sion and secondarily audience entertainment.
The college text concentrates on the modes of argument
which appear as methods of development, primarily paragraph
development. Crews lists the modes of argument in contem
porary terms such as definition, cause and effect, classi
fication, and comparison/contrast. Methods of paragraph
development in the current-traditional model are the clas
sical topics that have survived through the centuries. In
both Crews and Warriner, and other texts of their kind,
5
these methods of development are paradigms for organizing
essays. They can be used as resources for constructing
arguments, whether those arguments be single paragraphs or
whole essays. Warriner discusses the topics as elements in
organizing the single paragraph. He teaches students to
employ facts, concrete details, specific examples, related
incidents, reasons, description, and comparison/contrast,
or to isolate and/or solve a problem, draw an analogy, or
explain a cause.
One traditional view of rhetoric is that it is a mana
gerial art; it has to do with the construction and manage
ment of knowledge as well as with aiding in the discovery
of probabilities. The current-traditional model sees writ
ing as a set of rules and models for the correct arrange
ment of preexistent ideas. Crews tells his readers that
the term "rhetoric" in his book is used only "in its primary
sense as the effective placement of ideas and choice of
language.""’ Warriner tells his students that writing is
about ideas, and that ideas bear upon the subject and pur
pose of the composition. Thus, we see that the emphasis is
upon the creator of discourse and his product, the speech
or essay. Crews and Warriner typify this view of rhetoric
as a managerial art in their principles of organization and
development. For example, Crews first establishes that
each paragraph has its own job to do and its own means of
accomplishing that job (by announcing the topic, defining a
6
term, launching a generalization, testing a hypothesis,
raising an objection, etc.)/ then states that these purposes
can be served effectively by following ten principles of
paragraph development, "some covering the function performed
and some the order of presentation." These principles, he
claims, can equip the writer for any conceivable situation.
Established as imperatives, they are
1. state a thesis and support or illustrate it
2. build toward a conclusion or question
3. develop an explanation
4. replace one view with another
5. develop a comparison or contrast
6. establish the basis for a contrast
7. put a definition to work
8. classify or divide a subject
9. analyze a statement or passage to bring out its
meaning
10. move climactically through time or space
Crews says also that the writer should approach all
forms of writing (but he actually limits his discussion to
expository prose) by first formulating a thesis, then
gathering support for it, and finally presenting it clearly
and in well-organized order to a reader or readers. In ar
gumentation, the writer is made aware of the three modes of
appeal— -logical, ethical, and pathetic— which in turn con
dition the writer's use of the various topics. Crews does
7
not name the modes of appeal as such, but discusses their
use and possible misuse under such heads as controlling
one's tone, supporting one's assertions with facts, quoting
accurately and fairly, avoiding either-or reasoning, avoid
ing prejudgments, and showing moderation. Through his dis
cussion, Crews concentrates upon shaping and constructing
the argument itself, as if the writer were carving an arti
fact out of some very concrete substance. When audience is
mentioned, it is nearly always viewed from the writer's
viewpoint with his intentions foremost.
Because Warriner is writing for less sophisticated,
younger students, less time and space are devoted to teach
ing the principles of argumentation. But equal emphasis
is placed upon the shape a paragraph ought to have and the
techniques the writer needs to have in hand in order to
arrange ideas effectively within a paragraph. Thus, the
topic sentence is stressed as the "thesis" of the paragraph.
In the chapter on the paragraph, Warriner emphasizes that
unity and coherence (which appear to be the chief goals of
paragraphs) can best be achieved by beginning with a topic
sentence, following with supporting sentences which develop
the idea introduced in the topic sentence, and concluding
with a "clincher" sentence that summarizes or otherwise
gives a sense of ending. Students are given specific meth
ods of paragraph development, which I have already noted.
The order of ideas and means of linking them together
8
through transitional expressions complete the topics that
instruct students about writing paragraphs. Warriner does
add suggestions for revising what has been written, but
those suggestions amount to little more than a checklist of
the steps he has outlined previously in paragraph writing.
Argumentation is considered only one type of writing assign
ment; Warriner's advice to the writer is to choose a debat
able subject, make a list of arguments that might work,
begin effectively in order to get the audience's interest,
and support the thesis with evidence. That evidence may
come from reliable facts, established authority, or clear
examples. Warriner admonishes students to argue fairly and
logically, concluding with a summary or projected plan of
action.
The current-traditional model's treatment of style
places much emphasis on grammar and usage, sometimes called
diction. The style urged upon students is a socially ap
proved one which reflects the dictates of educated taste.
Crews tells his readers that essays have an unavoidably
public character; they are not vehicles for self-display.
He does not deny writers their private right to explore
their feelings, but says that putting forward first thoughts
just as they occur to them should not be confused with pre
senting ideas "about a topic that [they've] found suitable
7
for treatment within the scope of an essay." He empha
sizes rationality and practicality because the writer deals
9
with a general audience of reasonable people. In his sec
tion on Style, Crews discusses the careful and deliberate
choice of words, equally careful and deliberate crafting of
sentences, and methods of arranging sentences in well-con
structed paragraphs. In the chapter on Words, the list of
"avoids" tells us a great deal about values in style: avoid
redundancy and circumlocution; avoid cliches; avoid jargon;
avoid offensive language. Other admonitions include these:
make use of your dictionary; seek a middle level of diction;
call things by their names; use words in their established
senses; say no more than you mean; make your metaphors vivid
and appropriate. Crews provides a short review of English
grammar, usage, punctuation, and spelling, all of which he
characterizes as the "conventions" of language. Again, his
readers are made aware of the public character Of their
essay writing, for these conventions are viewed as long
standing agreements among users of a language that enable
them to communicate effectively with each other and which
endow them with the right to be taken seriously.
Warriner's book is more grammar than composition in
struction, as a glance through the table of contents will
confirm. The order of the parts in his book is indicative
of the emphasis put upon analyzing discrete elements of
language use. The book begins with parts of speech (their
identification and function given through definition), moves
to the sentence (where diagramming shows students how
10
discrete parts of a sentence relate to each other), then
takes up the phrase, and ends with the clause (wherein sen
tences are classified by structure). The second part takes
up the problems of usage; the emphasis is upon correctness,
although some mention is made of non-standard usage as it
contrasts with standard. The third part takes up sentence
structure, emphasizing completeness and effectiveness.
Sentence style is viewed as a matter of emphasis and vari
ety, with suggestions about varying sentence beginnings,
structures, and lengths.
Not until we get to the fourth part do we find a dis
cussion of writing beyond the sentence level. I have al
ready discussed the major concerns of this section on the
paragraph and the short essay, but the emphasis upon logic,
order, and form is worth noting again. Planning skills are
given a major portion in this section; the formal outline
serves as the chief means of teaching and learning how to
plan the shape and content of one's essay. Creative writ
ing is separated from exposition, and the young writer is
allowed some individualistic display of temperament and
style. However, even here, a series of careful guidelines
makes sure the student will not misuse comparisons, over
indulge in inappropriate metaphors, or forget to add sen
sory details in an effort to achieve vividness which will
enable the reader to "picture" the story, scene, or image
as the writer intends.
11
The practical and editing aspects of writing take up
most of the rest of Warriner's book. A considerable space
is devoted to mechanics, a testament to the importance in
this model of composition that editing skills assume.
Again, the aim is to ensure correctness and general public
acceptability.
The current-traditional view of composing has grown
from a long history of rhetoric and education and draws its
strength and validity from principles which have developed
from Aristotle through the Renaissance and the eighteenth
century to the first half of the twentieth century. I have
already claimed that the current-traditional model is
creator- and product-oriented. This orientation is rooted
in the classical view that rhetoric applies to the princi
ples of training communicators. For Aristotle, rhetoric's
.
purpose was to enable the communicator to discover all the
possible means of persuasion in any subject and, as an art,
rhetoric helped man discover and perceive truth to the
highest degree of certainty. The focus of this older view
of rhetoric was upon the speaker or writer, although cer
tainly audience figures importantly in the completed rhe
torical act. As a principle of pedagogy, rhetoric's empha
sis was upon training the communicator in ways to generate
and conduct communication with an audience. Aristotle dis
tinguished rhetoric and its counterpart, dialectic, from
12
philosophy and science on the basis of the kind of truth
each could reveal. Rhetoric and dialectic were concerned
with probable matters; the rhetor could find several roads
that would lead to the truth. Philosophy and science, on
the other hand, were concerned with demonstrable matters.
A concern with style and language that suited the rhetor's
particular purpose in reaching the audience figured in the
training of a speaker, and is important to our understand
ing of the current-traditional paradigm and its contrast
with the new.
During the Renaissance, Peter Ramus and his followers
divided rhetoric into two parts, style and delivery; lan
guage was defined as the "clothing" to the thought. With
language and thought thus divided, dialectic became the
function of discernment and judgment; rhetoric's function
was to add ornamentation to speech, thought to be originally
plain. Elocution and pronunciation were considered proper
to rhetoric; invention and disposition were assigned to
dialectics. The Ramists became almost completely concerned
with developing and employing the figures of speech as the
vehicles of effective disposition. Under their influence,
rhetoric's province was style and delivery. The emphasis
upon figures of speech fell into disrepute, however, as the
effect of the printing press and the concern for the ver
nacular discourse led to a view of rhetoric as a social in
strument which demanded that the rhetor "paint a portrait,"
13
create a sense of presence in the audience, and be perspic-
8
uous, simple, direct, and natural. Vernacular discourse
aimed to create a sense of the "presence" in the minds of
an audience, for presence was considered the primary engine
of oratory, not argument or logical inducement. Bacon's
view that "the duty of rhetoric is to apply Reason to Imag-
g
ination for the better moving of the Will" pointed a way
for rhetoric to balance reason, passion, and imagination,
the three things Bacon said dominated the Will. In The
History of the Royal Society,^ Thomas Sprat argued that
experimental knowledge sought a precise use of words. Elab
orate employment of tropes and schemes did not embellish
truth; it hid truth. Clear language, on the other hand,
served to promote increased human understanding. As for
invention, the topics were rejected, for they concerned
what had already been discovered and could only serve the
purposes of arrangement; invention did not concern sources
of new information.
In the eighteenth century, rhetoric continued to re
flect the emphasis upon creation of discourse and its dis
position. Adam Smith's classification of discourse by
function, rejection of the topics, definition of taste as
that which the majority accepts, and description of style
as inornate, perspicuous, and plain, enveloping ideas in
language which can be understood readily, reflected commonly
accepted ideas about rhetoric and influenced later rhetori-
14
cians such as Blair, who forwarded the doctrines of good
sense, naturalness, and clarity in his own time."^
We find the current-traditional classifications of the
modes of discourse rooted in the eighteenth century. Smith
held that discourse was of four kinds: narrative, didactic,
rhetorical, and poetic. Narrative discourse had as its
goal to inform, and was attained through the relating of
facts, especially in historical writings. Didactic dis
course had as its primary goal to convince, with persuasion
secondary. It was achieved by attempting to prove a propo
sition when proof could only be accomplished by a two-sided
presentation giving each side its true degree of influence.
This is typified in philosophical arguments and scientific
expositions. Rhetorical discourse attempted to prove prop
ositions when proof could be accomplished only by magnify
ing one side and by diminishing or concealing the other.
Forensic, deliberative, and demonstrative speeches were
examples of this type; the goal of rhetorical discourse was
persuasion. Poetical discourse was a special kind whose
function was to create pleasure and entertainment.
12
Joseph Priestley's lectures on oratory and criticism
provide the current-traditional model with further princi
ples of arrangement. Priestly taught that a set of pre
cepts directed each of the four important steps in composi
tion of discourse: recollection, method, style, and elocu
tion. His specific naming of forms which would develop
15
either the narrative or the argumentative method can be
found in today's texts as principles of arrangement and
principles of paragraph development. .For example, narra
tives can be developed chronologically, by order of place,
by citing distinct parts, by arranging in causal order, or
by showing similarity of events and the association of
ideas. For argumentative discourse, Priestley cited two
methods: analysis and synthesis. The synthetic method is
illustrated in studies such as geometry, wherein the arguer
lays down a proposition, defines its terms, demonstrates it
by resorting to relevant axioms, adds remarks for clarity,
and deduces further truths or corollaries from the conclu
sion proved. The analytic method begins with observations
or experiments, then shows how they lead to some principle.
The topics, according to Priestley, are applicable to the
composition of argument, for their sole purpose is to aid
in the discovery of every argument and observation proper
to the argument. Topics do not find something new; they
only resummon existent knowledge. In short, topics are
managerial, not investigatory.
Another key concept of eighteenth century rhetoric
concerns style and may be exemplified in Campbell's notion
of the vivacity of ideas which has primary responsibility
for securing attention and belief in an audience. The de
gree of liveliness, according to Campbell, determines the
ideas an audience attends to and believes; the rhetor must
16
communicate ideas which feel lively and vivid to hearers or
readers through sensations, memory, and imagination. Asso
ciation of ideas of the mind provides routes for the trans
fer of energy; the rhetor must discover those associations
which induce liveliness. Along these lines, perspicuity
and purity are prerequisites for compelling discourse.
Stylistic devices can help enliven ideas and infuse energy,
but they do not "clothe" thought as earlier rhetoricians
13
had held. Priestley held that style demonstrates how
thoughts can be expressed in the most telling manner, and
the method chosen should produce one of three effects: the
effect of relating facts; the effect of establishing propo
sitions; the effect of producing pleasure by the medium of
the imagination or the passions. He specified the devices
that might produce those effects, devices which can be
found in current-traditional texts today and which are
accepted generally as guides to effective, clear, vivid
writing. In appealing to the passions, the rhetor/writer
should use present terms and concrete words in portraying
real or fictional events. In appealing to the audience’s
judgment, the rhetor/writer should use good logic, earnest
ness, a sense of conviction and impartiality, vivid ideas,
and strong emotions. In appealing to the imagination, the
rhetor/writer can employ contrast, burlesque, riddles, puns;,
antitheses, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, climax,
and other specific figures of speech'. Or he should draw
17
out and exercise the audience's faculties through novelty,
sublimity, uniformity, variety, comparisons, metaphors,
allegories, and the like. A contemporary textbook phrases
these terms differently, but the sources are clear:
Avoid irrelevancy.
Make real assertions.
Rely on the active voice.
Make your series consistent and climactic.
Vary the order and complexity of sentence elements.
Move between generality and detail.
Rewrite sentences to make them more vivid and con
crete . 14
The best business letters of the present are those
which glow with friendliness.
Emphasis or Force is given the main ideas in a sen
tence by placing them properly, the positions of
greatest emphasis being the beginning and the close.
Added force may be given by arranging ideas in order
of climax, by repetition of words or sounds, by the
use of figures of speech, by the addition of modifiers,
through conciseness of expression, and through variety
in general.15
One important point to remember in regard to writing
the persuasive paragraph is this: While you may have
very strong and good reasons for believing or acting
as you do, others may have equally strong and good
reasons for believing and acting as they do. Every
question or problem has at least two sides. Therefore,
in order to persuade someone to your point of view,
you must, as far as possible, know his or hers. Study
and understand both sides of the problem, as much as
you can, no matter what you are advocating.
The artistic description appeals to the emotions.
Largely subjective, it appeals to the imagination as
well. It gives an impression of the object and causes
the reader to feel much as the writer felt. Because
it always suggests more than it says, the mental point
of view is very important in the writing of an artis
tic descriptive composition.16
While vividness and liveliness were extolled as vir
tues of style, so were clarity and simplicity of expression:
18
the plain style. Adam Smith believed that taste was rooted
in the fashion, custom, and common sense of the audience.
Taste is based on majority sentiment, although authors
should refine the taste of their constituents. Rationality
is important to taste, but the rules of grammar by them
selves are unimportant. Beauty is the principal substance
of taste, which consists, then, of variety, simplicity, and
clarity. In order to achieve this style, Smith believed
the speaker or writer must avoid the ambiguity that comes
from the use of synonymous terms, refrain from using long
parenthetical statements and superfluous words, not overuse
pronouns, use short sentences, and employ primarily native
Anglo-Saxon words. The greatest threat to clarity is orna
ment, for the reader or listener reacts favorably only to
those ideas which can be understood readily. Perspicuity
brings the objects of life to life in a discourse and makes
them readily understandable to an audience. While contem
porary composition textbooks do not talk about perspicuity,
they do offer maxims such as these:
Use the active voice.
Put statements in positive form.
Use definite, specific, concrete language.
Omit needless words.
17
Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end.
Description was widely held among eighteenth century
rhetoricians to be the means of achieving selectivity and
19
clarity in writing and speaking. Description aids the
recall of real events and summons in the audience an im
pression that events are passing in their presence. It was
considered the fundamental rhetorical method for affecting
feelings, attitudes, beliefs, and actions. And since pic
turesque clarity in concrete images representative of nature
was the hallmark of style, a primary function attributed by
men such as Campbell and Priestley to description was its
role in the management of style. This view of style placed
emphasis on the visual qualities of discourse, making even
facts a sense experience. And it made the role of reader/
listener that of a spectator, a spectator undergoing sen-
sate experiences which energized thought and passion.
Echoing this view of style in the twentieth century, Crews
writes that in a descriptive essay
the writer tries, not simply to convey facts about
the object, but to give readers a direct impression
of that object, as if they were standing in its
presence. The descriptive writer's task . . . is
one of translation: he wants to find words to cap
ture the way his five senses have registered the
item, so that a reader of those words will have a
mental picture of it.
Except for the influence in the nineteenth century of
the Elocutionists and Delsarteans, rhetoric in the United
States until well into the twentieth century reflected the
influence of Campbell, Priestley, Blair and others who in
turn reflected the philosophy of the Age of Reason with its
emphasis upon the rational, no matter how much attention
was given to particular aspects of style. The demise of
20
the Elocutionist influence and the growing disrepute of
"Belles Lettres" gave way to textbooks and teachers who
stressed written composition rather than oral delivery, and
who emphasized paragraph development and arrangement within
a narrow classification of forms: narration, description,
exposition, and persuasion. Early in the twentieth century,
19
James Winans1 text on speaking went back to the past and
Aristotle, grounding its material upon tradition and logic.
However, Winans did recast rhetoric in terms of a wholeness
and restored invention as a necessity for producing sub
stance in discourse. No really significant new theories of
rhetoric appeared until I. A. Richards in the 1920s and 30s,
Kenneth Burke in the 1940s, and Chaim Perelman in the late
1950s. They and others have altered our definitions of
rhetoric and helped to change the perception of the compos
ing process— in fact, of all human communication processes.
21
NOTES
Charles Cooper and Lee Odell, eds., Research on
Composing; Points of Departure (Urbana: National Council
of Teachers of English, 1978).
2
Thomas S. Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions
(Chicago; University of Chicago Press, 1970).
3
Frederick Crews, The Random House Handbook (New
York; Random House, Inc~ 1977); John S. Warriner and
Francis Griffith, English Grammar and Composition, Fourth
Course (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1977).
4 5
Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., p. 5.
r
Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., p. 7.
g
See Fenelon's Dialogues on Eloquence. Fenelon's
might be considered the first modern rhetoric for its
advocacy of simplicity, directness, and naturalness.
9
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed.
William Armstrong (London: Athlone Press, 1975).
■^Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society, eds.
J. I. Cope and H. W. Jones (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1959).
11
Adam Smith, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres,
ed. John Lothian (London; Thomas Nelson, 1963).
12
Joseph Priestley, A Course of Lectures on Oratory,
ed. Vincent Bevilacqua and Richard Murphy, Landmarks in
Rhetoric and Public Address Series (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1963).
13
George Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, ed.
Lloyd F. Bitzer, Landmarks in Rhetoric and Public Address
Series (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press,
1963).
14
Crews, pp. 128-163.
15
J. Marty Walsh and Anna K. Walsh, Plain English
Handbook: A Complete Guide to Correctness (Wichita, Kansas:
The McCormick-Mathers Publishing Co., 1939).
22
Staff of the Writing Improvement Project, Building
English Skills; Composition (Evanston, 111.: McDougal,
Littell & Company, 1977).
17
William Strunk, Jr., and E. B. Whxte, The Elements
of Style, 2nd ed. (New York: The Macmillan Compnay, 1972),
pp. 13-27.
1 So -,,-
Crews, p. 16.
19
James Winans, Speechmaking,(n.p.: 1915).
CHAPTER II
THE "NEW" MODEL FOR COMPOSITION
PART 1
An Overview
In contrast to the "current-traditional" paradigm for
composition, a newer paradigm is emerging. The most strik
ing feature of the new paradigm— and its most revolutionary
aspect— is that of emphasis on writing as a process, not as
product. Other important features include course materials
and textbooks that include invention as a component of the
whole rhetorical act; the traditional modes of discourse
classified differently, e.g., by function; recognition of
the importance of "voice" and "audience" in choosing lan
guage for discourse; understanding that both reading and
writing are physical, neurological acts engaging both eye
and hand, and both left and right brain hemispheres; accep
tance of the idea that both reading and writing are commu
nicative transactions between writer/speaker and reader/
listener through the medium of a text; emphasis upon gaining
syntactic fluency; recognition that writing is an act of
discovery requiring both prewriting and revision activities
as important parts in the creation- of written discourse;
24
research that examines writers writing to see what it is
they actually do and how they do it, as opposed to analyz
ing the finished product to try to understand the act of
writing.
By concentrating upon the process, that is, what writ
ers do when they write, the new model for composition shifts
away from the traditional view of the elements of rhetoric
broken down into separate parts— invention, arrangement,
style— and views writing holistically as a transaction be
tween a writer and an audience through the medium of a text.
And because writers intend some meaning and propose to af
fect an audience, the modes of discourse tend to be classi
fied according to the aims of discourse. Invention has been
restored to the new model in its investigatory role as well
as its managerial role. That is, heuristic systems that
enable a writer to discover subject matter, to find some
thing to say, operate in a prewriting phase of the process;
but the traditional methods of paragraph development that
were derived from the topics of invention remain to serve
as guides for the arrangement of material in a discourse.
But perhaps the most influential element of the new
model is the view of language as human action with man de
fined as a symbol user. The new model draws from related
fields such as lingusitics, philosophy, and psychology which
lend insight into the normative features of language. Where
classical rhetoric grew out of the need by democratic in
25
stitutions for instruction in speechmaking and was basically
grammatical in nature, and where eighteenth century rheto
ric grew out of the interest in the message-mind relation
ship and faculty psychology and thus might be described as
psychological in nature, modern rhetoric grew out of the
need to respond to the tensions and breakdowns in human re
lations and might be called sociological in nature since it
is concerned with promoting human understanding and improv
ing the process by which man communicates with other men.
Roots for the New Model: Its Theoretical Bases
Contemporary rhetoric reflects a shift away from the
emphasis on the speaker/writer and creation of discourse
to a concern with the auditor/reader and interpretation of
discourse. This shift of focus has been profoundly influ
enced by the new electronic media and by the proliferation
of popular print materials. Modern audiences are no longer
oriented only to print or speech; consequently, rhetoric's
domain is in every means of communication, including film,
television, advertising, and non-verbal transactions. All
discourse is the domain of rhetoric because rhetoric is
viewed as an integral part of human affairs. Written mes
sages of all kinds are now viewed,by most rhetoricians al
ways in a context. They are given and received through a
situation involving both writer and reader; that situation,
or context, includes the worlds of both writer and reader,
the world of reality created by interaction between writer-
26
text-reader, and the wider world-out-there in which the
acts of writing and reading take place. Whereas intention,
in the older irhetorical sense, lay with the purpose of the
rhetor— to persuade, praise, blame, explain, instruct,
delight— intention in the formulation of a text is now re
garded as significantly affected by the audience for whom
it is written. In turn, the form of the text is necessarily
affected by intention. Audience— intention— structures:
these three aspects of the rhetorical act are inextricably
bound together. And because, in this modern view, meaning
is in part created through an audience's interpretation of
a text, messages are persuasive or "sermonic"-^ in an impor
tant sense. Modern rhetoric has turned away from the in
sistence upon verifiable proofs through experimentation or
observation and from the sharp division between philosophy
and rhetoric toward a view of rhetoric that sees people as
valuing as well as reasoning beings. Aristotle's distinc
tion between the probable and the demonstrable has largely
disappeared from the new rhetoric, and the results of argu
ments are regarded as temporal and relative. Thus, an
audience can be persuaded by the presentation of warrants
for their belief and acceptance or action as well as by
scientific proofs or formal logic.
Common to the new rhetoric and to the newer paradigm
for written composition is the view of man as symbol-making,
-using, and -misusing. Whereas Aristotle saw man as a
reasoning animal, contemporary rhetoricians see him as
uniquely able to manipulate symbols. In fact, they agree
upon the recognized importance of language as the key to
man's understanding of himself and his control of his own
progress. Language makes men human, and through it men
strive toward mutual understanding, the resolution of
strife, and inducement of cooperation among themselves.
I. A. Richards calls rhetoric "the study of misunderstanding
2
and its remedies"- and directs our attention to the con
scious process by which authors and audiences arrive at
mutual understanding. For him, the metaphor assumes a cen
tral importance in rhetoric for "metaphor is the omnipresent
3
principle of language," and it is language which makes us
distinctively human. Donald Bryant defines rhetoric as
4
"the rationale of informative and suasory discourse,"
insisting that it is a method, not a subject. Further,
rhetoric concerns informed opinion, not scientific demon
stration, and produces contingent truths. Its function is
to adjust ideas to people and people to ideas. Kenneth
Burke, influential in shaping the new paradigm for composi
tion, sees rhetoric as ". . , rooted in an essential func
tion of language itself . . . the use of language as a
symbolic means of inducing cooperation in beings that by
5
nature respond to symbols."
Key terms in Burke's rhetoric are "identification" and
"consubstantiality." While writer and reader may retain
their individual identifications, they are "consubstantial"
28
when they identify with one another. Burke puts it this
way:
A doctrine of consubstantiality, either explicit or
implicit, may be necessary to any way of life. For
substance, in the old philosophies, was an act; and
a way of life is an acting-together; and in acting
together, men have common sensations, concepts,
images, ideas, attitudes that make them consubstan-
tial.6
Burke's dramatistic method which makes use of a pentad
of terms that serve as an elegant and powerful heuristic
gives us a way of analyzing and understanding how the rhetor
becomes consubstantial with reader or listener.
Wayne Booth pinpoints'modern rhetoric's concern with
audience in his discussion of rhetorical stance:
The common ingredient that I find in all of the writ
ing I admire— excluding for now novels, plays, and
poems— is something that I shall reluctantly call
the rhetorical stance, a stance which depends on
discovering and maintaining in any writing situation
a proper balance among the three elements that are
at work in any communicative effort: the available
arguments about the subject itself, the interests and
peculiarities of the audience, and the voice, the
implied character, of the speaker. I should like to
suggest that it is this balance, this rhetorical
stance, difficult as it is to describe, that is our
main goal as teachers of rhetoric.7
The writer, says Booth, creates his readers, and if he
makes them well, he makes them see what they have never
seen before and moves them into a new order of perception
, • 8
and experience.
The Importance of Invention
A significant difference between the current-tradi
tional paradigm and the new is the place of invention in
29
the composing process. In the traditional textbooks,
invention exists, if at all, in the form of dicta about
methods of paragraph development, in concentration upon the
topic sentence, or in the form of an outline that features
the traditional six-part schema of a speech or argument.
Little or no attention is paid to methods whereby writers
can discover subject matter for themselves through either
personal experience or the universe outside. The newer
texts, reflecting the need to provide student writers with
means whereby they can discover and generate subject matter,
include at least some mention of heuristics and emphasize
the importance of prewriting in the whole composing pro
cess. For example Winterowd's The Contemporary Writer has
an entire chapter devoted to a discussion of heuristics,
ranging from brainstorming and journal writing as a means
of discovering subject matter to highly structured heuris
tic systems such as that which Young, Becker, and Pike
. . . 9
developed from the theory of tagmemxc lxnguxstxcs.
Indications of the stress put upon the inclusion of
invention in a contemporary rhetoric comes from several
sources, both within and without the field of English com
position. Although the "Report of the Committee on the
10
Nature of Rhetorical Invention" was concerned with a vxew
of the place of invention in rhetoric generally, the view
is valuable for teachers of composition in particular:
. . . so far as rhetoric is an art of communication
among people, rhetorical invention is that aspect of
30
the art which constructs its subject matter. It is
important, in an age in which fixed forms— whether
in metaphysics, art, politics, cultural patterns and
so forth— are under attack, to look at the word from
the perspective of invention, taken as the generation
of something new. In this sense discovery, invention,
creativity are overlapping processes, or aspects of
the process of generating the new. Invention (used
now as the generic term) becomes in this context a
productive human thrust into the unknown.11
The Committee suggested schemes of invention and in so do
ing commented that a process of invention can be described
"(a) formally, as a kind of process; (b) conceptually, as
an orientation or point of view; and (c) analytically, as
12
xnvolvxng separate constituents of invention."
Educators and researchers working in psychology have
been trying to establish and describe the general features
of heuristic procedures employed by people engaged in crea
tive problem solving. Janice Lauer argues that teachers of
composition need to learn more about the relationship of
heuristics and composition in order to improve an intellec
tually shallow discipline and "break out of the ghetto"
13
composxtxon courses currently are in. To that end, she
offers an extensive bibliography on heuristics as a tool of
self-education for the theorist and teacher of composition.
Janet Emig cites the lack of available information about
what actually happens when students write and sets out to
determine those activities, devices, and strategies that
characterize the composing process. Using the case study
method to examine twelfth grade students, Emig found that
students do little or no prewriting and planning in school-
31
sponsored writing, but that prewriting is a longer process
in self-sponsored writing. And although students may oper
ate from a plan, they seldom if ever do any written prefig
uring. However, a phenomenon Emig calls "composing aloud"
may serve as an important inventional device through which
students engage in thinking and composing in a nonexternal
ized fashion. An implication for teaching is that students
need more time for quiet thinking before engaging in en
counters with words and concepts; another implication is
that both teachers and students may benefit from knowing
and using inventional schemes that serve to get the writer
started.^
Richard Larson develops a plan for teaching rhetorical
invention which helps students discover and deal with a
world of ideas and concepts. Arguing that genuine creativ
ity is preceded and accompanied by an intensely heightened
consciousness of experience and an understanding of what
the creator knows and feels, Larson proposes
. . . that in our teaching of "invention" we make a
persistent effort to force students to become as
familiar as possible with the facts, and possible
relationships among the facts, about experiences on
which they might write, and also that we force them
to examine the facts underlying concepts they con
sider important and the content of propositions on
which they may want to write . . . I propose that
students come through a process of systematic ques
tioning— questioning which students engage in mostly
by themselves, rather than questioning conducted for
them by the teacher. The teacher may demonstrate the
technique of systematic questioning, but the students
must apply the technique for themselves if they are
really to learn its usefulness.15
32
In Kenneth Burke's Pentad— the five key terms of dra-
matism— we have an elegant finite set of questions which
can generate discovery. The terms— act, scene, agent,
agency, purpose— Burke uses as the generating principle of
his investigation into what is involved in explaining what
people are doing and why they are doing it, in all forms of
thought, whether "embodied profoundly or trivially, truth-
16
fully or falsely." The Pentad and its ratios can be suc
cessfully employed by writers as well as readers in inves
tigating "systematically elaborated metaphysical structures,
in legal judgments, in poetry and fiction, in political and
scientific works, in news and in bits of gossip offered at
17
random." And the terms can be used as an aid to writers
in generating or discovering what to say about any human
action or subject as well as in analyzing and interpreting
them.
This brief exploration of the importance contemporary
rhetoricians put upon the place of invention in the compos
ing process serves to indicate, however tentatively, a
major direction in the change from the current-traditional
to the modern model for composition. Specific applications
of these ideas and of particular heuristic schemes will be
demonstrated in Part 2.
The Modes of Discourse
A reflection on the shift of emphasis toward the audi
ence in modern rhetorical theory is in contemporary theo
33
rists’ reorganization of or reclassification of the inodes
of discourse. James L. Kinneavy distinguishes between
modes and aims of discourse and presents a schematic frame
work useful for its scope and comprehensiveness. The aims
of discourse are referential, persuasive, literary, and ex
pressive, and the modes— narrative, descriptive, evaluative,
classificatory— feed into any of the aims as discourse is
developed. Under referential, for example, Kinneavy cites
exploratory writing (dialogues, seminars, tentative defini
tions, diagnosis), scientific writing (proving a point by
arguing from accepted premises, proving a point by general
izing from particulars), and informative writing (news ar
ticles, reports, summaries, and so on). The intent here is
to get away from an emphasis on form and, instead, to focus
upon what discourse is for, for purpose in discourse is
all-important. Purpose determines everything else involved
in the process of writing or speaking, according to Kin
neavy, for the subject matter, the language chosen to deal
with it, the grammatical patterns are all chosen on the
, 18
basis of purpose.
Roman Jakobson has devised a conceptual framework that
deals both with what he calls the constitutive factors in
any speech event and with the variety of language functions
in any speech event. In his schema, there is an addresser
who sends a message to an addressee. The message (written
or spoken) has a context (the same as referent in other
34
systems) which is perceived by the addressee and which is
either verbal or capable of being verbalized. Further,
there is a code which is at least partially understood by
both sender and receiver of the message, sent through a
"physical channel and psychological connection between the
addresser and the addressee, enabling both of them to enter
19
and stay m communication." This channel Jakobson terms
contact.
These six factors determine the different functions of
language, which are referential, emotive, connative, poetic,
phatic, or metalingual. The emotive or expressive function
is predominant in discourse when the addresser's aim is to
expressly project an attitude toward what he is speaking or
writing about. In speech, expletives and ejaculations
exemplify this expressive aim; in writing, educators have
come to take "expressive" writing as that which enables the
writer to explore language without fear of correction or
"being wrong," or which is sometimes called "prewriting" as
an element in the process of producing written discourse,
or as personal writing for whom the audience is the writer
alone. In any case, emotive or expressive function is
focused upon the addresser.
Referential discourse is related to context; its pur
pose is to convey information. A report, a news story, or
a set of directions on how to insert a lining into a suit
jacket— these are typical written examples of referential
35
discourse, for they are primarily intended to convey infor
mation as opposed to expressing deep inner feelings. Dis
course that is oriented toward the addressee is conative in
function; Jakobson finds in vocative and imperative expres
sions the purest grammatical forms of the conative. In
written discourse, the persuasive essay serves as the form
most commonly taught and practiced, since such an essay is
meant to move a reading audience to accept a belief, take
an action, change an opinion, and so on.
Messages primarily sent to keep the lines of communi
cation open or to check to see if the communication channel
works serve a phatic function. Ritualized verbal exchanges
such as those one hears in telephone conversations or in
social situations such as cocktail parties serve the phatic
function. A metalingual purpose is related to code. Jakob
son explains that whenever the addresser or addressee has
to check to see if either is using the same code, code per
forms a metalingual or glossing function. Finally, focus
on the message for its own sake serves a poetic function of
language; put another way, when the sole purpose of lan
guage is the message alone without regard to other factors,
the discourse is poetic. In discussing this point, Jakobson
claims that the poetic function
cannot be productively studied out of touch with the
general problems of language, and, on the other hand,
the scrutiny of language requires a thorough consid
eration of its poetic function . . . Poetic function
is not the sole function of verbal art but only its
36
dominant, determining function, whereas in all other
verbal activities it acts as a subsidiary, accessory
constituent.^0
The Britton study of school writing among British
school children found an even more useful classification of
the categories of writing based upon what school children
actually produced as young writers. His study discusses
writing also in terms of aims, or, as it is phrased there,
as function categories. The function categories are trans
actional (language to get things done: to inform, advise,
persuade, or instruct others), expressive (language that
reflects thinking aloud on paper, diary entries, personal
letters, and so on), and poetic (writing that uses language
as an art medium, where the very phonetic, syntactic, or
lexical aspects of language are themselves the objects of
attention).^
The Britton study also points out that in order for us
to understand fully the function categories, we must also
understand the role a writer assumes as he/she struggles
with the problem of communicating with an Other. Britton
traces an account of language functions through such lan-
22
guage theorists as Cassirer, Bruner, Piaget, and Kelly to
base his study upon the fact that man uses language to rep
resent experience in the world to himself. Of major impor
tance, then, is that language has enormous value to the
user:
With a communicative incentive, that of sharing
experience, the speaker shapes experience, makes it
________________________________________________________________37
available to himself, incorporates it, so shaped,
into the corpus of his experience. Children using
language in school are busy structuring their own
experience and weaving into its fabric the experience
of others.23
Further, we do not simply receive experiences of the world
from the past; we continually modify, reorder, make the
necessary adjustments in order to test hypotheses gained
from experience and improve our predictive apparatus. If a
new experience is too unlike our expectations, we make an
adjustment to it by reviewing it in our mind, or by talking
about it, or, as children do, by indulging in "make-believe"
in order to make that experience intelligible. This pro
cess of re-enactment of the experience is like the process
we enter into in imagined experiences. From this explana
tion, Britton develops a definition of two roles we may
adopt as language users:
In terms of an abstract model we might put it this
way: given that man constructs a representation of
the world as he has experienced it in order to operate
in it, an alternative kind of behaviour is then open
to him: he may manipulate the representation without
seeking outcomes in the actual world. The first of
these two kinds of behaviour (operating in actuality
via the representation) we would call behaviour in the
role of participant, and the second (working upon the
representation without seeking outcomes in actuality)
we want to call behaviour in the role of the spectator.
To be in the role of spectator is, in one sense, to
generate hypotheses without the present intention of
putting them to the test.24
Britton then relates the participant and spectator
roles to the function categories. In the transactional
function, language is used to effect an outcome; the writ
ing itself is an immediate means to an end outside itself.
38
Form is dictated by the writer's desire to achieve that end,
and the forms of the language used are of little concern to
the writer. But most importantly, the writer is involved
presently in the writing, trying to match his experience and
knowledge with that of the reader in order to inform, teach,
record, explain, or achieve a similar practical outcome.
Thus the writer is in the participant role. In the poetic
function, writing is a verbal artifact, an end in itself.
Consequently, form and language are essential parts of the
reader's response to the artifact; the phonetic, syntactic,
lexical and semantic aspects of the work are themselves the
objects of attention from both writer and reader. In the
poetic function, then, the writer uses language in the role
of spectator. In this role, the writer's purpose in using
language is to portray real or imagined experience for en
joyment. In expressive writing, language stands between
the poles of transactional and poetic writing, and the
writer uses language that moves freely from one role to the
other. If the demands of expressive writing are task-like,
then the writer will move more into the participant role
because a task means something is to be done through lan
guage. If the demands move toward creating a construct,
then the writer will move toward the spectator role because
the construct implies the need to make something in lan
guage, the characteristic of the poetic function.
There are, certainly, other systems of classifying and
39
describing the kinds of written discourse produced by-
writers, accomplished and professional or immature and na-
25
xve. The ones under discussion here have been presented
in order to show that a new paradigm for composition in
part grows out of a rethinking about the nature of writing
as process. Conceptual frameworks such as Kinneavy1s or
Jakobson"s or Britton's force us to consider the whole act
of writing, to look at writing from both the writer's and
reader's point of view, and to attend to the functions or
purposes of writing as greatly influencing writer, text,
and reader alike.
Psycholinguistics: Reading Theory
Major contributions to this modern view of the writing
process we have been discussing come from psycholinguistics
and reading theory. Because the new model for composition
looks at the writing process holistically, it must account
for the role played by the reader in the construction of
meaning in a text. This in turn creates the necessity for
writers to develop a keen audience awareness and to keep in
mind the needs and expectations and capabilities of their
audiences.
The basic principle of reading theory is that reading
is an active process involving neurological, psychological,
and sociological action. The reader plays an active role
in reading. He is involved in identifying letters, words,
passages, etc.; in sorting out all the variable features of
40
the printed text; in relating to context by fitting the
world of discourse to his own perception of the world.
Reading is a decision-making event which brings to it past
experiences, expectations, present knowledge, and feelings.
As the reader reads, the perceptual process involves know
ing, predicting, and interpreting which operate upon the
cue system in the printed squiggles on the page. His cog
nitive apparatus operates upon the visual array of unstruc
tured raw material, detects significant differences, sorts
and categorizes information according to his cognitive
"map," reduces uncertainties and eliminates redundancies in
the syntax or print, stores information in the short-term
memory, draws from his long-term memory, and completes the
actions just described in terms of "having read." This
knowing-predicting— deciding process occurs at a precon-
scious level where the reader makes selections from among
alternative possibilities.
Equally important is the principle that comprehension
2 6
is the reduction of uncertainty. A reader cannot process
and store all the visual information he is presented; at
least, experiments show the short-term memory able to store
only seven (plus or minus two) bits of information in a
2 7
given period of time. Readers must be able to overcome
the limitations of the visual system by eliminating alter
native meanings, extracting meaning directly and immedi
ately from the text, partitioning and associating features,
41
handling redundancy and reducing amounts of visual informa
tion required to read, and drawing upon internalized sources
of information. The feature "redundancy" aids to fill in
the empty spaces in visual information and permits extrac
tion of meaning even when some words or letters are missing.
Consequently, what readers derive from reading— MEANING
— is a process involving the perceptions of the total human
reader. Perception is a constructive process, both Smith
2 8
and Cazden point out, for what we expect from, a text is
largely determined by our prior conceptions ("cognitive
maps") of the world which come from our experiences in and
with the world. As children mature, they acquire rules to
predict and interpret events in the world around them and
29
then order that world. Language acquisition in part
shapes the learner's perceptions and certainly enables him
to express thoughts. Reading theorists tell us that mean
ing is not derived from the sequence of words on the page;
on the contrary, information is available to the reader at
every point in the reading process. Instead, we grasp
meanings as "wholes," integrated wholes. Meaning is not
the sum total of meanings of individual bits in a phrase or
a sentence. Ideas are analyzed and represented by sequences
of symbols. We organize our mental dictionaries which con
tain these symbols to reflect our past experiences and our
future expectations, engaging constantly in the process of
"taking reality apart" and putting it together again.
42
These arguments lead to the conclusion that meaning is
in the reader. Although the words of a text are put there
by a writer, the fluent reader does not derive meaning from
those words by studying every surface feature, but rather
by reading directly for meaning— immediate meaning identifi
cation. Furthermore, the fluent reader operates simultane
ously at the surface and deep structure levels, employing a
minimum of visual information. But how does the reader
know what the writer intended to mean? First, writer and
reader share the language in common; thus the reader can
reach into the text to the writer and construct meaning
based certainly upon the rule-governed nature of language
and sometimes upon the shared cultural background from which
the language derives. A child learns a wide range of con
texts in which a language rule may be used; as he becomes
a fluent reader, he can apply those rules in deriving mean
ing from a text. As the phenomenologists point out, reading
is creative in that it involves a dreaming consciousness in
which imagining is becoming, and for which the text is not
30
an object but the reader's self, his consciousness. In
31
his discussion of the phenomenology of reading, Iser says
that semantic pointers in individual sentences imply an ex
pectation of some kind but that as we read we continually
modify our expectations as we move from sentence to sen
tence. As readers, our position in the text "is at the
point of intersection between retention and protension"
43
(Husserl's term for expectations); as we read, what has
been read "shrinks in the memory to a foreshortened back
ground, but [it] is being constantly evoked in a new con
text and so modified by new correlates that instigate a
32
restructuring of past syntheses." The reading process is,
then,
. . . a continual interplay between modified expecta
tions and transformed memories. However, the text
itself does not formulate expectations or their modi
fication; nor does it specify how the connectability
of memories is to be implemented. This is the prov
ince of the reader himself, and so here we have a
first insight into how the synthetizing activity of
the reader enables the text to be translated and
transferred to his own mind . . . every moment of
reading is a dialectic of protension and retention,
conveying a future horizon yet to be occupied, along
with a past (and continually fading) horizon already
filled. . . ,33
Experiments with young children show that they inter
nalize the rules of language but, when faced with new lan
guage situations, will draw not only from their store of
knowledge about syntax and referential meaning, but also
from the situational context and implied rules of conversa-
34
tion to arrive at an interpretation or meaning. This
fact reminds us that reading occurs in a social setting, as
does talking. That does not mean interior speech does not
occur, but it means that reading is culture-specific. In
this, sociolinguistics can aid the teacher in understanding
the process and problems of reading and writing. Language
varieties, characteristics of language function, and char
acteristics of language users constantly interact within a
44
community. When a reader reads, he brings to the text not
only his mental and physical idiosyncracies, but his social
experiences as well. The reader's behavioral condition,
dialect, expectations, and experiences with his world out
side the text and previous contact with worlds in texts
will influence his experience of reading. Reading theory
establishes that readers acquire functionally equivalent
feature lists with criteria! sets of features for each cat
egory, then associate a name with each category. This is
part of the process of learning to identify and "know"
words. Cazden speaks of "associative'clustering" in a
child's ability to remember words and sort them into cate
gories. Clearly, readers draw upon multiple interacting
cognitive processes during reading, one of which is the
ability to make associations, draw comparisons and con
trasts , and see relationships. But the determining factor
is that the text of a work will be "seen" more directly from
the reader's perspective than it will from the writer's.
Nevertheless, as rhetoricians such as Booth, Fisher,
35
Burke, Weaver, and Black point out, language is affectxve.
It stirs us to action or feeling, it subverts or affirms,
it involves intention and purposiveness, it "creates the
reader" by providing models of what the reader is to become,
it values and judges, and it offers the reader the freedom
to make choices and form values of his own. There is no
contradiction of principle here. What reading theory says
45
about the reader bringing meaning to the text, and what
rhetoricians say about the text and the writer affecting
the reader and in turn being affected by the reader, simply
suggests that reading is a circular, inclusive, holistic
event involving interaction among the reader's world, the
writer's world, and the world of the text.
The selection and judgment process in various kinds of
reading which take place in classrooms may affect the speed
at which students read. The accessibility of a text must
be taken into account, for the dense texture of a modern
poem will naturally baffle a seventh grader unless he is
shown how to ferret out clues which he can then process in
his own mind with his own innate capacity for understanding.
Accessibility of a text implies not only that a reader is
at least partially familiar with the world it creates, but
also that the text possesses what Hirsch calls "relative
3 6
readability." Given two texts that have the same seman
tic intention, the one that is more readable will require
less time and effort to understand. That does not mean
that difficult prose Writing is not readable, however. The
writer may or may not mean to be clear, persuasive, or sim
ple. But it does imply that writers need to learn skills
that enable them to convey their meanings as efficiently as
possible, always keeping an intended or implied audience in
mind.
We know also from reading theory that readers sense
46
the deep structure meaning as they read. Teachers should
capitalize upon this fact of language ability and provide
situations and lessons which encourage students to express,
test out, compare with others, and reassess those meanings
they have sensed in the reading. Readers have a personal
involvement in their reading, to greater or lesser extent
depending upon the text, the time, the task, their ages,
and other non-language reasons. The degree of involvement
between reader and text will certainly affect whether com
munication is successful or not. We can learn something
useful by looking at the role relationships assumed by
readers, at the complexity or density of the text, at the
cultural values involved in language activities, at the na
ture of the teacher-student relationship, at the attitudes
of teachers about dialect or non-standard usage, at the non
school experiences with language all students bring to class
with them, and much more.
Cazden points out that writing may contribute to a
metalinguistic awareness of language and to uses of language
in intrapersonal thought. Tests devised to find out to
what extent children are socialized to attributize or dimen-
sionalize their environment indicate that educators need to
encourage "greater fluency in both imaginative metaphors
37
and informational analysis." Citing work by Vygotsky and
Luria, Cazden shows that written language provides a neces
sarily slower language experience, involving repeated
47
mediating processes of analysis and synthesis, backtracking,
reassembly of idea, internal structuring, and more time for
expansion of thought, than does speech. Writing can offer
the student a means of developing power in his thinking.
To help young learners develop this power, she suggests
that reading aloud to students gives young learners prac
tice in comprehending the kinds of language structures found
in books, language structures which are qualitatively dif-
38
ferent from those of speech.
The skill of writing is also related to the processes
of listening and reading. Moffett, among others, stresses
chat one learns to read while writing and talking but that
it is equally true one learns to write by talking and read-
39
mg. Thus, dramatic play, word games, self-expressive
writing, and classroom discussion are important motivational
procedures in the classroom. Writing should be introduced
early in the language experience; students should read what
they write. Both word recognition and vocabulary develop
ment should improve as a result. Moffett also emphasizes
that composition must be approached from both the reader's
and the writer's viewpoint. Student exchanges, reading
each others' writing and commenting on it, grants the stu
dent some insight as to how misreading occurs as well as
how communication functions effectively. His program of
writing for an ever-widening audience is a workable one for
every level; it provides experiences in using language aimed
48
at oneself, others, and posterity as well as associating
appropriate and effective language for a given audience and
purpose. (Moffett's program is based upon a sequence of
language tasks. Sequencing can be misused, however, if one
forgets that students don't learn language sequentially but
in "chunks." Specifying that writing for a certain audi
ence or purpose should be done only after practice with
other audiences or purposes does not take into account a
student's competency at a given point in time, only a stu
dent's age or grade level or place in the sequence of writ
ing tasks.)
David Bleich offers a series of four phases or se
quences which promises to capitalize upon those things
which readers actually do when they read and respond to
literature: They have feelings about themselves, they re
late to what they read and have feelings about literature,
they judge and evaluate intellectually after an initial
emotional response, and they relate to and care about what
others think. Bleich says this: "The logic of this se
quence is that it proceeds outward, so to speak, from the
most primitive, automatic, and unconscious experiences to
the most complex and lately developed capacities— intellec-
40
tual and communal thought and interaction." The view of
both Norman Holland and Bleich is that a reader responds to
a work of literature by assimilating and subjectifying fan
tasy and meaning which have objective existence (Holland),
49
that the reader response process is wholly subjective and
involves judgment (Bleich), and that a work of literature
41
is a process; meaning is a,process. Consequently, teach
ing programs which engage the reader in subjective criti
cism, open discussion, expressive writing about literature,
and communal sharing of ideas will enrich the experience of
reading and relate psychologically to what the process of
reading really is.
Perhaps the most important notion from reading theory
is that teachers should encourage risk-taking on the part
of their students. In order to extend a range of knowledge
about a word or concept, the learner must cast about, weigh
and balance options among meanings, test, confirm or reject,
and perhaps fail. Teachers must provide an atmosphere in
the classroom that encourages experimentation in reading
and writing and speaking. Bleich suggests that, in order
to get away from the concept of "right" and "wrong" or
"superficial" and "critical" reading and writing, students
can interpret a text as a group activity (after initial
personal responses, of course) which helps the individual
evaluate his own convictions or beliefs in a proposition,
find them validated or invalidated by the group of which he
is a part, and "nurture the ability to develop convictions
42
responsibly based on his tastes."
The Matter of Style
The new paradigm for composition does not eschew
50
entirely those principles of style that characterize the
current-traditional model. For instance, classifying sen
tences as declarative, interrogative, imperative, or ex
clamatory, or as periodic or loose is still a valid way of
clarifying for students the purpose and effect of sentences.
It is still of value for students to know about the syntac
tic components of a sentence, particularly as a revising
skill. Clarity, conciseness, vividness, and variety are
still held in high regard, given the purpose and audience
for a specific discourse. Calculating the effect of words
on readers/listeners in order to move,, arouse, satisfy, or
instruct them is an important consideration for today's
writers just as it was for yesterday's. And choosing dic
tion suited to audiences, purpose of the writer, and form
of a text is more than ever a necessary skill because of
the increased awareness of writers about the transactional
nature of language.
However, the new model places emphasis on enabling
writers to gain syntactic fluency at the sentence level and
beyond. It encourages student writers to develop versatil
ity with sentence structures to suit their message and their
audience; the effectiveness of sentences is judged in terms
of audience response. In general, acquiring skills in
doing writing as opposed to knowing about the grammar of
the language for its own sake or being able to analyze
someone else's model writing is strongly stressed. The new
51
model also separates composing skills from editing skills,
which furthers the concentration upon the act of composing
without sacrificing instruction in acquiring a degree of
"correctness" or acceptability in the use of a written
dialect.
One of the most significant "new" approaches to achiev
ing the skills and expertise desired by writers is found in
programs designed to help young and inexperienced writers
develop syntactic fluency at the sentence level. The spe
cific technique I will focus on here is sentence combining,
a way of helping students learn how to manipulate sentence
structures, add to their repertoire of ways in which to
express ideas and feelings, and develop a style in their
writing. Sentence combining occupies an important place in
the new model of composing, for it carries out the emphasis
upon writing— upon doing— rather than knowing about and
analyzing.
But before we look at sentence combining, we need to
consider the propositional nature of sentences. Fillmore
regards simple sentences as made up of a verb and a collec
tion of nouns in'various "cases" in the deep structure
sense. The syntactic relationship.of these nouns (or noun
phrase types) to the main verb in a sentence is defined by
the category under which they are introduced, bearing no
direct connection with whether they eventually become sub
jects or objects. A major assumption of this theory is
52
that the constituents of a sentence are modality/ auxiliary,
and proposition. The proposition contains what will be the
subject of the sentence along with the verb and all the
nominal elements relevant to the classification of verbs;
it may contain adverbial elements capable of becoming sub
jects or objects as well. The concept "proposition" car
ries with it the notion of roles such as agent (subject),
patient (object), dative, locative, comitative, and instru
mental. These sentences (from Fillmore) illustrate some of
the roles:^
John has a car.
I bought a car.
The key opened the door.
John is with his brother.
A coat is in the closet.
V - Obj - Dative
V - Obj - Agentive
V - Obj - Instrumental
V - Objective - Comitative
V - Obj - Locative
First, consider the propositional nature of the sen
tence
RATTLESNAKE STRIKES LAWYER
Predicate
Role 1
Role 2
Strike Rattlesnake Lawyer
This simple sentence contains STRIKE, predicated of RATTLE
SNAKE and LAWYER; RATTLESNAKE and LAWYER assume two roles,
agent and patient (or subject and object). It is not dif
ficult for any native speaker of English to understand the
53
proposition; even if we passify to LAWYER IS STRUCK BY
RATTLESNAKE, neither the predicate nor the roles change,
although grammatically the subject and object do change.
But most sentences are not that simple:
AROUSED, RATTLESNAKE STRIKES LAWYER
Predic
Strike
\
Role 2
Rattle
snake
Lawyer
Aroused Rattlesnake
STRIKE is still predicated of RATTLESNAKE and LAWYER, but
we've added another proposition: the rattlesnake is
aroused. However, English speakers can sort out the two
propositions even though the sentence might be added to or
written differently. In reading such a sentence, readers
understand who is aroused and who struck whom. The problem
in reading arises when we have a sentence of difficult ac
cessibility: AA TESTIFIED THAT SCHICK CLAIMED THAT SYNANON
FELT THAT- THE RATTLESNAKE WAS SAFE IS WEIRD. To sort out
the propositions in this sentence, the reader has to match
predicates with roles. Or, if we write RATTLESNAKE STRIKES
LAWYER, AROUSED, some readers will mistake the Lawyer, not
the Rattlesnake, as aroused. At least the possibility of
54
confusion is there. Composition students can be taught how
to write sentences that accurately express what they want
to say, providing their readers with meaningful combina
tions of propositions, through sentence combining practice.
Sentence combining is a method of enhancing students1
syntactic fluency by causing the production of sentences
more complex in structure than those they might write cur
rently. Sentence combining practice capitalizes upon stu
dents ' normal growth in their ability to write more mature
and complex sentences as they grow older and experience the
world around them. Research shows that children have ac
quired full competence repertoires by about grade four, but
their writing performance does not fully reflect that natu-
44
ral competence. Since, by writing age, children have
acquired the full roster of kernel-sentence types and trans
formation rules, growth of syntactic fluency can result
from increased use of sentence embedding transformations
promoted by a sentence combining program.
45
Kellogg Hunt's research in the mid-19 60s found that
all the kernel sentence types, including those with predi
cate complement embeddings, are used as fully and as fre
quently by fourth graders as by twelfth. The same is true
of the simple transformations, such as the passive, the
negative, and the question. However, transformations which
operate on embedded sentences, although acquired by even
the youngest writers, are used more frequently by twelfth
55
graders. Clearly, treatments for promoting growth in syn
tactic fluency should take into account that young writers
already have learned all the kernel sentence types and
transformation rules.
Hunt concluded that the hallmark of mature syntactic
fluency is the ability to "say more" with every statement.
The increased use of relative transforms, for instance,
allows a writer to make secondary statements about the nouns
in the main sentence. Greater use of nominalized sentences
means that the writer will predicate more often on state
ments than upon simple nouns. And transformed sentences
are recursively embedded at deeper levels, thus producing
that effect of "saying more" with each statement. In other
words, the writer packs more content into a sentence.
Using Hunt's findings and, in particular, his T-unit
concept as the indicator of syntactic maturity, John Mel-
46
Ion devised a sentence combining program in connection
with the study of transformational grammar. Working with
seventh graders in 1965-66, Mellon used a process of "re
verse parsing" wherein students were given separate kernel
sentences to embed into single statements in order to pro
duce more structurally mature surface sentences. His stu
dents were taught the notions of base rules, basic (kernel)
sentences, and simple transformations, then several nominal
and relative transformations as well as pre- and post-noun
reductions of the latter. Then using a system of cues
56
which directed them to make specific transformations, stu
dents combined sets of kernel sentences to produce exemplary
target sentences. This problem illustrates the form of
47
Mellon's transformational sentence combining problems:
Problem:
The children clearly must have wondered SOMETHING.
The bombings had orphaned the children.
SOMETHING was humanly possible somehow. (,T: wh)
Their conquerors pretended SOMETHING.
(T: infin— T: exp)
Chewing gum and smiles might compensate for the
losses. (T: fact)
The losses were heartbreaking.
They had so recently sustained the losses.
Students would then write out the fully formed sen
tence :
The children whom the bombings had orphaned clearly
must have wondered how it was humanly possible for
their conquerors to pretend that chewing gum and
smiles might compensate for the heartbreaking losses
which they had so recently sustained.
Mellon found that junior high school students of all
ability levels were able to solve similar sentence combining
problems; in addition, they liked doing the problems, view
ing the process as more like a game than work, a puzzle to
be solved rather than a drill to be completed. Some stu
dents were able to produce the final complex sentence after
57
a single run-through of the several kernels. Other stu
dents followed a strategy of solving one transformation at
a time, rehearsing the sentence after each successive em
bedding until they reached the completed sentence. All
students relied upon their inherent sense of grammaticality
to test the "correctness" of the completed sentence.
At the end of the program, the experimental group in
Mellon's study were judged by unbiased teacher evaluators
to be better writers than the control group. But the most
important finding was that the sentence combining practice
itself increased students' growth, not the learning of
transformational grammar rules. Thus, Mellon concluded,
there is no need to teach parts of speech, phrase structure
and transformation rules; the signals do that work for the
student. He did emphasize, however, that sentence combin
ing is not a complete writing program but a method of en
hancing students' ability to write more mature sentence
structures.
48
Following Mellon's lead, Frank O'Hare set up a study
to see if students could learn to write more mature sen
tences without the trappings of formal grammar study, con
centrating upon learning how to manipulate the constituent
kernel sentences through a system of non-grammatical cues.
O'Hare tested whether a sentence combining program would
produce students who scored significantly higher on six
factors of syntactic maturity than the control group that
58
was not exposed to sentence combining.^
In order to do without the terms of formal grammar,
O'Hare devised a morpheme cue system which proved highly
successful. The following example demonstrates a typical
sentence combining problem using morpheme cues:^
Problem:
The children clearly must have wondered SOMETHING.
The bombings had orphaned the children. (WHOM)
SOMETHING was humanly possible somehow. (WHY)
Their conquerors pretended SOMETHING. (IT— FOR— TO)
Chewing gum and smiles might compensate for the lossea
(THAT)
The losses were heartbreaking.
They had so recently sustained the losses. (WHICH)
The statistical results of O'Hare's experiment are
well documented, but it is important to note some of the
"fall-out" effects of his sentence combining program, for
they bear directly upon classroom application. First, sen
tence combining focuses on the needs of students; the cues
help facilitate the combining operation by anticipating
where students may have a problem and by giving them cues
51
to help solve it. The morpheme cue system O'Hare devised
is easy to learn and do; students enjoy almost certain suc
cess, giving them confidence in their ability to write bet
ter sentences. The combining operations become habitual
from practice, a carry-over effect which shows up in stu
dents' free writing samples following a sentence combining
__________________________________________ 59
program. The habits formed from sentence combining prac
tice especially help students for whom English is a second
language or whose oral dialects are strikingly different
from the written dialect English teachers promote in the
classroom. Not the least important of the side effects is
that students learn to punctuate because they see the rela
tionship of punctuation to sentence structure. Thus, many
editing skills are easily learned. And, as in the Mellon
study, O'Hare's teacher evaluators judged the experimental
group's compositions superior because the writers seemed
able to see more, to add more detail, than were writers in
the control group.
Sentence combining investigation since O'Hare's study
has focused upon two major concerns: how sentences relate
to one another syntactically within an extended discourse
set (the paragraph and beyond), and how sentences relate
semantically to one another within an extended discourse
set as well as how parts of a single sentence relate in
52 53
meaning. william Strong's contributions to the devel
opment of a sentence combining program are two: first,
Strong offers sentence combining problems in a context;
second, he eliminates almost all cues from the problems,
54
creating a "free combining" process.
A sentence combining program modeled upon Strong's
system asks students to work with problems that range in
size from three or four to 10 to 12 (each problem a set of
60
kernel sentences to embed or conjoin), chosen so that the
sentences, arranged one after the other, form a complete
stretch of discourse. These in turn may create single or
multiple paragraphs. The student is forced to attend not
only to intra-sentence syntactic form, but also to themat-
icity, reference, tone, stylistic concordances, cohesion,
and ideas created by parts functioning within wholes. The
advantages of working with whole discourse sets are obvious:
students learn to create sentences that relate to other
sentences and are not simply concerned with isolated sen
tences apart from meaning in a larger context.
Strong's system eliminates almost all the cues from
problems except two. First, kernel sentences are listed
vertically, suggesting the sequence in which the transfor
mations take place. Second, double spacing indicates tar
get sentence boundaries. A representative sentence combin
ing set from Sentence Combining: A Composing Book, illus-
55
trates this minimal or "free combining" format:
French Fries
1. French Fries are loaded into a basket.
2. The French Fries are white.
3. The basket is wire.
4. Then they are lowered.
5. The lowering is slow.
6. The lowering is into oil.
7. Their bath crackles.
8. Their bath foams.
9. The bath is hot.
10. The potatoes release a puff.
11.
The potatoes are thinly sliced.
12. The puff is steam.
61
13. They come out crispy brown.
14. They come out streaked with oil.
This format is particularly useful by stimulating
comparisons among students' versions and provides opportu
nities for discussions of style, tone, or relative readabil
ity as well as pinpointing problems in use of transitions,
punctuation, or word choice. Students enjoy discovering
the many ways to combine the kernel sentences and can be
encouraged to experiment further by creating alternative
versions of their original solutions. In "French Fries,"
for instance, the double spacing suggests five sentences;
but students can easily combine the 14 kernel sentences
into three, two, or even one structurally sound and inter
esting surface structure.
Since the early research and with the increasing avail
ability of textbook materials, considerable interest in
sentence combining techniques and applications has grown
among teachers from elementary through college level and
from diverse areas such as linguistics, psychology, ESL,
and basic writing. In a recent article, Mellon suggests
that sentence combining can help trigger the important skill
of decentering which, according to Piagetian psychologists,
marks the departure from egocentricity reached by children
5 6
shortly after they reach the stage of abstract thought.
Decentered writers can dissociate themselves from their own
words and view them as artifacts subject to revision and
crafting. They can also stop and start the flow of words
62
at will without losing their train of thought or intention.
This ability allows them time to shape their expressions,
constructing and reconstructing them literally in mid-crea
tion. Since the skill of decentering emerges in the junior
years, a propitious time for beginning a sentence combining
program might be the seventh grade so that, by doing the
operations of surface structure sentence combining, the
student can learn how to manipulate those operations in
order to facilitate their use in both present and future
writing. Mellon asserts, also, that no one lacks syntactic
fluency; however, sentence combining nurtures and speeds
up the natural process.
Two studies by Hunt in the early 1970s checked the
results of children's writing by comparing carefully con-
57
trolled rewriting tasks with free writing tasks. These
new studies confirmed Hunt's earlier claim that, as school
children grow older, they consolidate larger numbers of S-
constituents (an abstract structure underlying the simplest
of sentences). They also confirmed his claim that, as
school children grow older, the T-units they write tend to
get longer (length = mean number of words per T-unit). On
the basis of the rewriting studies, Hunt was able to spec
ify particular structures as immature or characteristic of
young writers ("early blooming structures") and others as
mature or apparent in older writers and skilled adults
("late blooming structures"). A partial list of these
63
structures illustrates the differences:
Early Blooming Syntactic Structures:
coordinate sentences
coordinate predicates
few, if any, appositives
few prenominal adjectives
Late Blooming Syntactic Structures:
prenominal adjectives
appositives
syntactic category shifts
prepositional phrases
In one of Hunt's rewriting passages, "Aluminum," appear two
adjoining input sentences:
It contains aluminum.
It contains oxygen.
These two sentences might be combined as
It contains aluminum and it contains oxygen.
It contains aluminum and contains oxygen.
It contains aluminum and oxygen.
Even in coordination there are grades of maturity. Least
mature is to delete nothing; more mature is to delete the
subject; most mature is to delete both subject and verb.
Hunt found that sixth graders and older writers used the
more mature construction; but among fourth graders, half
deleted nothing at all and the other half chose the less
mature construction. Hunt claims that there is no doubt,
given the measure of syntactic maturity established by him
and concurred in by other researchers, that a sentence com
bining curriculum can enhance significant growth toward
syntactic maturity.
64
Related studies indicate the place of sentence com-
5 8
bining in special writing programs. Mina Shaughnessy
points out that basic writing students may not know the
word needed to consolidate sentences, may not know the
grammatically appropriate form for that word, or may not
know the word's allowable contexts. A morpheme cued sen
tence combining program helps those students learn and use
appropriately words which link sentences together. She
says that sentence combining is better than teaching "words"
in isolation (vocabulary lists) because it helps the stu
dent acquire more mature structures while at the same time
increasing the student's possibility of making the best
choice consistent with his or her purpose. Her advice is
worth noting more fully:
[Basic writing] students . . . are clearly reaching
beyond the simple sentence--at‘ tempting, often without
success, to articulate through structure and the
idioms of relationship such connections as sameness
and difference, causality, temporality, condition,
importance, or attribute. The practice of consciously
transforming sentences from simple to complex struc
tures (and vice versa), of compounding the parts of
sentences, of transforming independent clauses into
dependent clauses, of collapsing clauses into phrases
or words helps the student cope with complexity in
much the same way as finger exercises in piano or
bar exercises in ballet enable performers to work out
specific kinds of coordination that must be virtually
habitual before the performer is free to interpret
or even execute a total composition. The analogy
weakens, of course, when we remember that the writer
is not performing someone else's composition, that
his performance ijs the composition, and that he cannot
therefore as easily isolate technique from meaning.
Indeed, should he try to do so, his technique will
also be affected. Nonetheless, sentence-combining
offers perhaps the closest thing to finger exercises
for the inexperienced writer. Whereas traditional
65
grammar study classifies the parts of the sentence,
sentence-combining requires the student to generate
complex sentences out of kernel sentences. . . . With
some regulation of the kind and amount of trans
forming a student does, it is possible to help him
move toward complexity without losing grammatical
control of the sentence.59
As for the place of sentence combining in revision, Shaugh
nessy further says that
to revise a sentence a writer must have a way, a
place, a strategy for breaking into it, but beginning
writers tend to experience their sentences as un
manageable streams of words which, once set in motion,
cannot be turned back. Thus injunction to revise or
record or even proofread passages often produce
merely neater copies of the same sentences, not
because the student is recalcitrant but because he
does not "see" the parts within his sentences that
need re-working. He sees no seams nor joints nor
points of intersection— only irrevocable w h o l e s .^0
Other instructors suggest that the structures needed
to teach ESL students are best taught through sentence com
bining: prenominal adjectives; adverbs; prepositional,
participial, gerund and infinitive phrases; noun, adverb,
and relative clauses. Research shows that ESL students
apparently do not use their first language habits in learn
ing the syntax of a new language. Instead, they tend to
develop learning strategies that recapitulate first lan
guage acquisition, but proceed more quickly through the
familiar steps. Therefore, sentence combining facilitates
61
and speeds up such development.
Language as Human Action
As writers, we are necessarily communicators, usually
aiming our messages to others. As communicators, writers
66
need to learn to be effective by realizing the affective
nature of language. Basic to the new paradigm in composi
tion is the understanding that using language is a human
action. While that may seem fairly obvious, we should ask
what it is that the analysis of language structure tells us
about the nature of human communication. Searle, in his
study of speech acts, says that "all linguistic communica-
6 2
tion involves linguistic acts"; and, since speech acts
are the basic units of linguistic communication, they are
essential to any specimen of linguistic communication.
Words, referents, and syntactic structures do not define
linguistic communication; the issuance or production of
sentences and symbols is its distinguishing characteristic.
Similarly, Chomsky's study of grammar has as one of its
aims a better understanding of the centrality of language
\
in human intelligence and human use of communication sym-
6 3
bols. Other theorists look at the grammatical rule sys
tems of language to discover what they can tell us of phil
osophical importance, what ontological conclusions can be
64
drawn from linguistic premises.
A second generally held view is that language is a
rule-governed activity. Chomsky's investigations into the
rule-conforming nature of language reveal the ability of
language users to abstract from underlying forms in the
grammar, process linguistic units through transformations,
and produce at the surface level an intelligible communica-
67
tion utterance. That humans can do this and do perform
this complicated task, and, further, that other humans can
receive and interpret uttered communications is empirical
evidence, for Chomsky, that language is governed by sets of
rules that can be documented by the linguist and from which
predictions about language behavior can be projected.
Searle's study of speech acts is predicated upon the rule-
conforming nature of language and upon the structures which
those rules impose in sending and receiving messages and in
affecting human action.
But there are more controversial and less easily ac
cepted features— features of Searle's theory, in particular
— that contribute to a theory of human communication.
First among them is the concept that speech acts, as rule-
conforming behavior, are normative. A speaker engaged upon
communicating with another human is involved in intentional
behavior. He may wish to exhort, blame, inform, question,
command, or any number of other intentional acts. In the
very utterance of his expression, he performs the act of
exhorting, blaming, or informing; he will at the least as
sert and predicate. The speaker is involved himself in the
act of communicating and, at the other end, the receiver
hears, recognizes, understands (unless, of course, the com
munication misfires, is incomplete, is impossible, etc.)
and ultimately acts upon (if appropriate) the utterance.
Further, our ability to recognize mistakes in formation of
68
a sequence of linguistic units that comprise a meaningful
expression, and the related ability to correct our mistakes
when they violate the rules of language which we have in
ternalized, are evidence that we do operate according to
the rule-conforming nature of language. In developing the
idea that statements can be certified by constructing asso
ciated linguistic rules, Black writes that "linguistic
rules are normative; they state what is and is not to be
done when the language is used; and so departures from or
violations of the rules evoke complaint and demands for
65
correction." It is not too far afield to suggest here
that this normative feature of the speech act fits comfort
ably with Burke's view that language has a normative im
pulse, for men strive in their communication for order in
the midst of chaos. The formal features of speech acts
permit both speaker and hearer to construct intelligible
order out of the communication. The conventional or formal
features permit speaker and hearer, or writer and reader,
to co-construct a successful, optimally complete communica
tion. In a sense, our acknowledgment of both the rule-
governed nature of language and its normative feature is
reaffirmative; that is, it supports what we know intuitively
about language. It illustrates that "innate" quality of
which Chomsky speaks.
Another important feature for inclusion in a compre
hensive theory of communication is the transactional nature
69
of speech acts. In this regard, Searle's explication of
the perlocutionary act as part of the total linguistic act
is significant primarily in underscoring the concept that
the illocutionary force of an utterance is essentially
something intended to be understood. This understanding
involves recognition of an audience-directed intention on
the part of the speaker. The force of the explicit per-
6 6
formative verb, as discussed by both Searle and Austin,
depends upon this recognition factor, sometimes described
as "uptake." Still, while perhaps a standard element in
most kinds of verbal transactions, the aim of securing up
take is not an invariable element. Nor is the achievement:
one can cite the example of a will that is never read to
illustrate that between the intent and the uptake, some gap
in the process exists.
Implicit in a view of language as action is the notion
of the transactional nature of language, but Chomsky's in
terest apparently does not lie in explicating it. He does,
however, emphasize that the linguistic information avail
able to one speaker of the language is available to other
speakers; that all speakers internalize the rules to such
an extent they need not think about them in order to con
struct an utterance; and that logically all speakers of a
language must have resource to the same underlying forms or
"universal grammar" in order to assign deep and surface
structures, generate and control and infinite set of
grammatical constructs, and know and correct errors in rec
ognition of breaking some linguistic rule. If this were
not so, humans could not communicate through language.
The illocutionary force of an utterance, as Searle
discusses it, depends in part upon the context in which the
utterance is made. This context-centered or context-bound
feature throws additional light not only upon the normative
and transactional aspects of language acts, but says some
thing about meaning as well. Chomsky analyzes at length
what he calls innate schemata of grammar, such as the cyclic
principle, extraposition, and transparency. The order of
words in a sentence is context-bound, subject to rules
which govern their position, transposition, deletion, and
so on. Similarly, Searle points out that the success of a
speech act is bound by certain rules which he terms the
propositional content rule. Except in such expressions as
greetings ("Hello," "How are you?") where neither the prop
ositional content nor sincerity condition pertains in the
context of the whole expression, a speaker intends some
meaning when he utters a string of sounds, intends the
hearer to recognize both his sincerity and intent, intends
further that the hearer understand his intent and know his
meaning, and expects the hearer to recognize that his ut
terance provides a conventional means of achieving a perlo-
cutionary effect in the hearer. Part of the context of the
speech act, in particular here the illocutionary act, is
71
those conventions associated with both the regulative and
constitutive rules. Searle's formula for distinguishing
constitutive rules is in "X counts as Y in context C" where
"counts as" is a term of specification. Meaning and per
formance, then, are inherent in each other. The speech
act itself is a function of meaning.
In taking up one aspect of Searle's speech-act theory,
& 7
Fish finds a discrepancy in Searle's division of speech
acts as direct (one whose illocutionary force is a function
of its meaning) or indirect (one whose illocutionary force
is something other than its literal meaning), arguing that
all speech acts are both direct and indirect: ". . .
direct because their meanings are directly apprehended, and
. . . indirect because their directly apprehended meanings
are functions of the situations in which they are em-
6 8
bedded." How he arrives at this conclusion does not con
cern us here, but his examination of speech acts leads to
our further understanding of the role context plays in con
veying and perceiving meaning. A sentence, says Fish, is
never in the abstract; it is always in a situation which
itself has already determined the purpose for which it can
be used. Thus,
a sentence neither means anything at all nor does it
always mean the same thing; it always has the meaning
that has been conferred on it by the situation in
which it is uttered. Listeners always know what
speech act is being performed, not because there are
limits to the illocutionary uses to which sentences
can be put, but because in any set of circumstances
72
the illocutionary force a sentence may have will
already have been determined.69
What this means to teachers of language is that there are
constraints upon language, but those constraints do not
inhere in language but in situations, in the contexts sur
rounding language use. In further answering the question
"How can a listener tell what speech act is being used?"
(for example, how can a listener tell that "It sure is hot
in here" is a statement of fact or a request to turn on the
air conditioner), Fish points out that the illocutionary
force of a speech act will be immediately perceived because
of mutually shared background information. An utterance
such as "I like the new. Gucci purse" may be taken as an ob
servation, that is, it means what it says and is therefore
a direct speech act. But it may also, when by virtue of
shared background information, mean more than it says, as
in this exchange:
What do you think of my new Fall ensemble?
I like the new Gucci purse.
Thus, it is an indirect speech act. This does not mean
that an utterance does not have a stabilized form; it means,
rather, that "since a sentence can appear in more than one
70
context, its stabilized form will not always be the same."
And so we have returned, in a round-about manner, to
the point made earlier that meaning is in the reader/lis
tener who operates upon a text/message in a situation/con-
text. The whole rhetorical act— and this important concept
73
must be made clear to students of both reading and writing
— is a function of an addresser who intends some meaning,
projected through the medium of language, used in a context
or set of circumstances, to an addressee who co-constructs
that meaning based upon shared background information.
A further feature of our theory of human communication
should be mentioned, that of "typicality." Perhaps it is
not a separate feature but entailed in the others, particu
larly that of language as transaction. If it is true, as
71
Fisher, Burke, Booth, and others say, that man transmits
socially derived knowledge through language by such means
as naming and generalizing, we might consider speech acts
either as a method or as a vehicle of typification. And
since typifications are inherently normative because they
involve concepts of the ideal, performing speech acts pro
vides speaker/writer and hearer/reader a formal conventional
means of co-constructing and conveying messages about self
and others, of conceptualizing together an ideal which may
amount to little more than an addresser succeeding in mak
ing a promise to an addressee who in turn agrees to and
values the promise.
Those interested in giving an account of language as
human action examine a minor but still significant feature
of human speech: phatic discourse. We recognize that we
know when rules of language have been violated and know how
to correct errors, but we also need to pay attention to
74
those common utterances that allow us to string bits of
discourse together, that signal our hearers that we intend
to say more once our thoughts are sorted out and we find
the right words, that act as "fillers" between more mean
ingful utterances, and that are expressive of emotion or
physical reaction. In a social context outside the class
room, we find phatic discourse common in "party" talk,
which is in conformance with established rules of etiquette,
both in speech and behavior, but which cannot be said to
"mean" something in exactly the same way that "I find you
unfit to stand trial" does. In the classroom writing situ
ation, it is not clear yet what role phatic discourse plays
(except, obviously, in writing fictional dialogue). But it
may relate to the ways some writers prime themselves to
start on a writing task. Humming, doodling, chewing pen
cils while staring off into space, arranging note papers,
tapping— any of a hundred ways writers have of waiting for
the idea to arrive from the subconscious level where it has
been "cooking"— may be regarded as physical counterparts of
phatic speech. Certainly such maneuvers are "messages" in
that they signal to others, a teacher perhaps, that the
channels are open for communication, that they intend to
say or write something when the thoughts are sorted out.
They are also ways in which the writer keeps his own chan
nel system open, rather like saying to himself, "Hold on—
I've just about got it— Let me see if this will work," or
75
the like. Emig notes the behavior of students in the
"starting" stages of composing; some of them compose aloud
before and sometimes during the writing stage. Their com
posing aloud is marked by specifiable kinds of hesitation
phenomena such as making "filler" sounds, expressing atti
tudes, digressing, repeating elements, and silence. Emig
suggests that these activities and silences may be an im
portant time for the writer because he is engaged in "non-
72
externalized thinking and composing."
Finally, application of theories such as Searle's or
Fish's to the analysis of forms of discourse other than
spoken communication are being explored. Richard Ohmann,
for example, has suggested that one can analyze poetry,
drama, and prose discourse profitably by applying the con
cept of speech acts to an examination of a writer's style
73
and to the form of the discourse itself. Looking at a
novel or stretch of dialogue through the theory of speech
acts enriches our understanding of a text in a way different
from that of ordinary literary or rhetorical analysis. The
idiosyncracies of Faulkner or Robbe-Grillet, for instance,
or the anomalies of To the Lighthouse make analysis diffi
cult unless we account for the kind and degree of deviation
from the usual, conventional forms. If we consider the
nature of speech as doing something, then we may apply the
notions of locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary acts
to a literary text to see what happens in it stylistically.
76
As writers, an understanding of speech acts can extend our
abilities to shape discourse for readers. After all, most
writing we do is meant to be read, whether fiction or non
fiction.
PART 2
The Program Base: Composition as Process
A composition program based upon writing as process
must take an eclectic approach. Although the outline of a
process described below will be discussed in parts, or sec
tions, or "stages," those parts are not viewed mechanically.
"Process" is not taken as a sequence of discrete stages,
but, rather, as a series of interdependent operations that
proceed, interweaving and overlapping, until some end is
reached. The following divisions of the subject function
as a heuristic that facilitates discussion of composition
as process and description of a composition program.
Several models have been advanced that delineate the
process of writing, each of which contributes insight into
what happens when one writes as well as establishing a lan
guage we can use in talking about writing. I have selected
five such models to serve as representative ways to organ
ize, discuss, and examine the process of writing. From
these five patterns I will suggest a composite view and
offer an approach to organizing a composition course that
takes into account the most salient features of the new
paradigm for composition.
77
1. The Emig Model. Janet Emig describes the stages
her twelfth grade subjects went through while engaging in
two modes of composing, reflexive and extensive. Following
some kind of stimulus for writing, students engaged in pre
writing and planning. She notes that students did far more
prewriting in self-sponsored writing than school-sponsored
writing; in fact, school writing seldom provides time for
prewriting activities. Neither did they bother much with
formal planning, such as an outline. In fact, able stu
dents, especially, reveal upon inquiry that most of the
elements that eventually appear in the piece are present in
their minds just before they begin to write. Before writ
ing, however, some "anticipating" may be done— anticipating
a problem that may arise or has risen before, thinking
ahead, revising before committing pen to paper, and so on.
Then students start, either matter-of-factly or with hesi
tation, displaying evidence of blocking or temperament.
The next stage is writing. For some this is an easy task,
perhaps because they are familiar with the subject or sure
of what kind of product is expected; for others, the writ
ing process is marked by stops and starts, hesitations,
pauses, beginning again, and so on. At some point, usually
a discernible one, the writer stops, responding to an ex
perience of the moment when he knows the writing process is
complete. The following stage, that of reformulation,
engages the student in correcting, revising, or completely
78
rewriting what he has previously written. Emig shows that
students do not voluntarily revise school-sponsored writing;
they will, of course, revise as an assignment. However,
they more readily revise self-sponsored writing volun-
74
tanly.
2. The Britton Model. The study done by Britton and
his colleagues in England produced a four-part description
of the phases most students go through in writing. The
preparatory phases Britton calls conception and incubation.
The conception process may be very brief or very long, but
there is usually some specific incident (accidental or pro
voked) that stirs the decision to write. Although teachers
may focus and control the situation by giving directions,
suggesting some research, or reviewing instructions, the
writer selects from his feelings and thoughts and embodies
those feelings and thoughts in language which he produces,
no matter what outside influence bears upon the moment.
This phase in a writer's process may be extremely diffi
cult, perhaps more difficult than the writing itself. His
perception of what is expected of him, the degree of rigid
ity or freedom of the assignment, inexperience, fear of
error, feelings of rejection or inadequacy, misinterpreta
tion of the task--these and many more elements may impede
the conception phase. When the writer knows that he is
going to write and understands to some extent what is ex
pected of him, he moves into the next stage: incubation.
79
This extremely critical stage allows the writer to get
straight in his mind what it is he wants to present and how
he thinks it should be done. Here he deals with what
Polanyi calls "tacit knowledge," explaining what he knows
and thinks to himself, letting the matter "cook" until it
can be articulated in formal language. This stage demands
a quiet time, perhaps even meditation, mixed with talk
about the subject or ideas connected with the subject.
Talking is central to the writing process, for it is ex
pressive, demands an immediate link with listeners, pro
vides a group experience which is supportive, and allows
for exploration, shared interpretation, and a pooling of
7 5
insights. If the incubation stage is severely controlled
by a teacher who insists on planning outlines, adhering to
a specified style or form, or otherwise placing the writer
in a too-confining penalty box, then the writer's inter
pretation of the task and his ability to assimilate it to
his own understanding may not be given a chance.
The third stage is production, which Britton says we
can analyze by watching and listening to the writer as he
works, studying what writers say about what they do, and
inferring something from the product they give us. The
first part of production is getting started, which involves
both finding a topic and then finding an appropriate way of
expressing what the writer wants to say about it. This
getting started phase may take many forms, among them
80
"mucking about," as the British report aptly puts it, mov
ing about the room, complaining about the assignment, and
asking questions such as "Can I say anything I want to?" or,
more often, "How long does this have to be?" to clarify the
assignment or to be reassured. After making a commitment
to the task, and after beginning to write, the writer may
decide to scrap what has been written and start again.
There is a sense among writers that the beginning is impor
tant, that the opening words and sentences are crucial to
their intent. Then, some writers frequently pause along
the way and re-read or scan what they have written. This
ploy might be to help hold the thread of the idea being de
veloped in the mind, to check for accuracy, to help think
about what should come next, to help the writer keep con
trol over what he is doing, and to make corrections and
needed alterations. The pause is obviously an important
time in which not only to recollect and revise but to plan
for what comes next as well. A constraint on the writing
process is the extent of information we can hold in the
consciousness at one time, so that the pause can be seen as
a period in which the writer struggles to get what he wants
to say "right" for himself and his readers.
Britton puts in a fourth phase "other" aspects of
writing which he stipulates as memory, written and printed
sources, and revision. As just noted above, one of the
constraints on writing is the limitation on the number of
81
words we can keep in our short-term memory. The poor
writer may keep very few words in the short-term memory,
and those may be stored as separate items. The fluent
writer, however, not only can hold whole words and phrases,
but meanings as well; thus, it is easier for him to achieve
coherence in what he writes. Written and printed sources
influence writing when, to some degree, they are manifested
in "copying." A writer may not be aware of his imitation
of or close relationship with some writing or writer he has
read and admired. Some writers, the able ones, are able to
draw from the work of others and synthesize it with their
own. Still others, the less able, to some extent copy
mechanically. But even this copying phenomenon can be made
to work for the student writer if it leads to his assimila
tion of a form, style, or content that he can later use as
a springboard into his own work.
Finally, revision is the stage that finds the writer
aware of some inadequacy or infelicity in the writing and
sets about to put it right, either for himself and his au
dience, or (too often, regrettably) to please an authority
or meet examination standards. Properly regarded, revision
is more than just correcting and revising and rewriting.
It is the final stage of a process, the point at which the
writer takes the responsibility for himself and what he has
written. He is ready to hand the written work to an audi-
7 6
ence and say "Here 1^ am."
82
3. The Huntington Beach Union High School District
Model. The two previous models were the result of empiri
cal research studies. This and the two following it are
the result of teacher group effort, either under the direc
tion of a leading rhetorician (the one presently under dis
cussion) , teacher leaders and teacher training institutions
(Los Angeles Unified School District), or professional
leaders and teacher group representatives from a state-wide
area (the California Framework). These models depart in
minor ways from the ones just discussed, but the HBUHSD and
LAUSD approaches suggest practical, classroom-oriented ap
proaches and are concerned as much with pedagogy as with
outlining composition programs.
Under the direction of Dr. W. Ross Winterowd, with the
assistance of Dr. Dorothy Augustine, and with the support
of the HBUHSD's Project Literacy program, Huntington Beach
teachers have devised a composition program that sees the
writing process in four parts: prewriting, composing, re
formulation, and revision. In the teacher training hand
book being developed by HBUHSD, this comment about prewrit
ing clearly defines that important stage in the process:
Broadly speaking, prewriting includes everything a
writer does, learns, feels, or imagines up to the
moment of writing. Narrowly, it refers to all prepa
rations undertaken for a writing topic or assignment.
The writer must form intentions (e.g., to describe,
to explain, to persuade), develop an understanding
of audience, create and organize ideas, and make at
least a hazy, tentative plan of attack. This pre
writing stage of the composing process may take
moments or hours, days, weeks, even months.77
83
The handbook writers cite heuristics or discovery proce
dures as strategies for finding ideas, developing them suf
ficiently, and solving problems in preparing to write.
Brainstorming activities and writing by analogy are included
as ways of getting ready for the writing task.
Writing assignments are suggested that conform nicely,
in both design and implementation, to what the researchers
(see Emig and Britton, for example) find actually takes
place when student writers write. The HBUHSD teachers dis
tinguish between reformulating and revising in this way:
an act of reformulation involves deletion, addition, re
arrangement, or substitution of words, phrases, sentences,
paragraphs; editing involves the skills of Edited Standard
English, the attending to details of mechanics and the pro
priety of language usage. Student-centered conferencing is
an important part of the reformulation stage, for it is
recognized that here the expectations of both teacher and
student can be dealt with privately and sincerely. Confer
encing is an important monitoring device for assessing stu
dent progress. Editing is attended to in a laboratory
situation, separate from the creative and recreative situa
tion of prewriting, writing, and reformulation, for here
the student is concerned with the cosmetics of written lan
guage, not its substance.
4. The Los Angeles Unified School District Model.
This model distinguishes between two overlapping kinds of
84
prewriting activities. Prewriting includes any activity
that elicits ideas, such as reading, discussing, observing,
and questioning. The aim of prewriting exercises is to re
inforce the concept that all the language arts are related.
An exemplary recommendation to teachers is that they some
times write their own assignments in order to clarify them,
develop appreciation for the time and effort they ask their
students to invest, offer a model for the class, and be
able to share results with the class. This recommendation
responds to the accusation that teachers themselves either
make unreasonable assignments, do not know the capabilities
of their classes, or, as students frequently suspect, can't
write the assignment themselves. In this model, prewriting
consists largely of reading and oral activities. Precom
posing, on the other hand, sets students to preliminary
writing tasks. For example, in the precomposing phase stu
dents might do informal outlines, work on sentence syntax
exercises, write proposals for a longer piece of work, draw
up lists of details to be used later, write trial runs in
personal journals, and the like. In addition, precomposing
skills include deciding upon audience and mode, reviewing
usage and mechanics skills that might be important in the
work to be written, vocabulary building, or researching a
subject. In both prewriting and precomposing, however,
students are able to go through those preparatory maneuvers
that will help to ensure success. A major positive direc-
85
tion in this model is that not all students are expected to
be able to perform beyond this preliminary stage; that is,
given the competency level of a student, he may not be asked
to go beyond a drawing up of lists of observed details, a
sentence outline that shows his intent, or a paragraph that
summarizes his opinions or desires. The more capable a
student, however, the more he is urged to exceed the mini
mum level of competency and aim toward deeper, more intel
lectual and far-ranging communication with an audience.
All students are asked to begin at essentially the same
point in an assignment, but not all students are expected
to be able to reach the same goal— a very pragmatic view of
both students and the composing process. Theoretically,
this allows every student to attain some degree of success;
it also allows, in the prewriting and precomposing stages,
interaction among students of all capabilities, a democra
tizing effect that is philosophically edifying.
The LAUSD model does not say much about the composing
stage itself, assuming that experienced teachers know when
to let students write. Course guidelines do provide spe
cific composing tasks and suggest ways of implementing them
within the model. An opportunity exists here for the model
to expand and give teachers some direction on "intervening"
in student writing, and in conferencing techniques, both
sound practices during the composing stage itself. The
model does, however, describe four domains of writing that
86
provide teachers and students with a checklist of all the
writing activities the district expects its students to
attempt, if not master. Those domains are described below:
Sensory/descriptive writing makes use of language to
record accurately and vividly impressions gained
through the senses. This domain includes various
forms, ranging in complexity from simple lists of
words and phrases to extended discourse in paragraphs
and poems. Although abstract ideas may underlie its
intent in more sophisticated efforts, sensory/descrip
tive writing draws its data from concrete details and
makes its statement from the power of observation to
recreate through the senses the quality of an expe
rience.
Imaginative/narrative writing draws on the resources
of language to organize events or actions involving
characters, objects, and settings into some meaning
ful time sequence. The raw materials for this domain
of composing may be drawn from personal or vicarious
experience, but they are ordered and embellished to
express an individual interpretation of the charac
ters, objects, places, and events. A sense of move
ment, subjective response, and inner reality govern
much imaginative/narrative writing.
Practical/informative writing uses language for utili
tarian or survival purposes. Although vividness and
emotional tone may be employed to enhance practical/
informative writing, its primary purpose is to record
events, directions, and ideas in simple, clear, con
cise language, addressed to a particular reader and
intended to bring about a desired response.
Analytical/expository writing employs language to
analyze and/or to explain a character, a process, an
idea, or a conviction by a logical and often psycho
logically effective arrangement of details, examples,
reasons, or arguments. Because it attempts to clarify
the substance of ideas, this domain of composing
demands precise, accurate diction and a more formal
organizational pattern, including a clear thesis
statement, paragraphs developed by topic, and mate
rials arranged for the reader to understand how the
writer's conclusions were reached.78
Revision is the fourth phase of the writing process,
which includes editing as part of that phase. Revision is
____________ 87
meant to be taken as rewriting, reorganizing, making cor
rections according to teacher or peer recommendations, or
otherwise altering the original work to meet specifications
and expectations. Editing involves the skills of spelling
and mechanics and may include specific instruction and ex
ercise work on these matters. Practice in these areas,
according to the model, will increase flexibility, fluency,
skills, confidence, speed, and competence.
The last phase is evaluating, which can mean teacher
evaluation, peer evaluation, self-evaluation, or a combina
tion of these three. At any rate, growth cannot be per
ceived as such until the student comes to grips with his
successes and failures and can understand what he needs to
do or become in order to meet self-imposed goals or goals
set for him by others. This phase includes such activities
as total class discussions, peer group discussions, confer
ences with the teacher, measurement against a predetermined
list of criteria, or formal testing procedures.
5. The English Language Framework for California Pub
lic Schools Model. This model is different from the others
cited here in being based upon program objectives and goals.
The Framework defines composing as "an active structuring
of one's experiences according to one's interests and the
7 9
situation." it specifies the broadest goals of composing
as helping students develop self-assurance in communication,
develop language proficiency, and structure a segment of
88
experience into an aesthetically coherent whole. In order
to implement these goals, a teacher with a planned program
assists students in these six aspects of composition:
1. Voice:
2. Audience:
3. Content:
4. Form:
5. Style:
6. Self-evaluation: being aware of strengths and
weaknesses.
The speaker's voice relates to composing as an act of
self-definiton and expression to an audience. Reporting
observations, conversing, sharing experiences, dictating to
a recorder, making critical reports of observations, and
similar activities help develop the writer's sense of voice.
The growing awareness of audience demands that writers turn
their attention to the relationships between spoken and
written language. Activities that help students discover
89
a. finding a personal voice— the
speaker's voice.
b. finding a voice to speak to audi
ences— the writer's voice.
a. deepening the sense of self in
relation to an audience— speaker's
audience.
b. defining various audiences— writer's
audience.
having something to say.
giving shape to ideas,
developing an individualistic way of
communicating ideas.
the effects of word choice, emphasis, exaggeration, and
punctuation show them how the two forms of language relate.
As students develop the awareness of audience, oral activi
ties such as conversing, dramatic play, and panel discus
sions can prepare them for honest, effective speaking and
writing. Composing journal entries, diaries, letters or
stories further aids students in realizing the multiplicity
of audiences, from the self to the anonymous general reader,
and thus develop the sense of the writer's audience.
Content in the composing process is a matter of help
ing students expand their worlds and sharpen their percep
tions. This phase is labeled pre-vision. Talking with the
class, keeping journals, reading, listening, observing,
analyzing and commenting, and imitating form or rhetorical
devices are suggested ways to help students think about
what they want to say.
The Framework emphasizes the point that the four tra
ditional forms of discourse are arbitrary, serving as con
venient labels for compositions, and that students need
practice in writing all forms of composition. Primarily,
they need practice in formulating generalizations from
details in order to understand a controlling idea, and to
find out how one sentence leads to another sentence and a
series of sentences link together to form a coherent whole.
In discussing style, the Framework urges a program that
helps students develop sensitivity to the nuances of
90
language, enrich, their vocabulary, continue to experiment
with sentence patterns and transformations to achieve clar
ity, balance, purposeful subordination, and coordination.
Dictionaries and books of synonyms and rhyming words or
individual wordlists are viewed as tools for gaining free
dom in writing.
Self-evaluation involves both revision and editing.
Revision is viewed as a restructuring from a fresh angle,
which itself involves a "new" vision, selection, and shap
ing. The point of both revision and editing is to engender
a sense of responsibility in the writer. Keeping folders,
small group discussion and evaluation, and conferences are
suggested ways to implement this phase in the composing
process.
Comparison among these exemplary models of the compos
ing process reveals three broad, general divisions which I
will adopt for my composite view. First, there is a period
preceding the actual production of a piece of writing in
which physical and mental preliminaries of one kind or an
other take place. Second, obviously there is a period of
putting pen to paper and physically making marks in lan
guage intended for some reading audience. Third, there is
a winding up period in which changes and/or corrections are
made to greater or lesser degree. These changes are made
based upon kinds of evaluative apparatus that operate inter
nally or externally upon the composition. Even when no
91
changes are made and no corrections are called for, the
writer has taken an assessment and deemed the composition
ready for an audience. However, the period of production
may include revisions and corrections as it goes along.
Even the production of a composition may result in a com
plete rethinking and rejection, thus serving as a prepara
tory stage for the next effort. In short, while we can
distinguish three general stages in the composing process,
we must see the process as more circular or interwoven than
strictly linear. All that is strictly linear is the time
that passes.
The terms "prevision," "vision," and "revision" have
been used to sum up accurately these three stages in the
composing process. However, because I believe a wide audi
ence of teachers interested in this subject would feel more
comfortable with readily-understood and widely accepted
terminology— the parlance of secondary teaching— I will use
the terms prewriting, writing, and rewriting. It is not my
purpose to reduce the composing process simplistically.
Rather, I believe this tripartite model will serve to give
shape to a composition program while at the same time accom
modating different points of view and different approaches
to implementing it.
92
Theory into Practice
Prewriting
In the prewriting stage, students find or are assigned
subjects, discover the possibilities for writing about
those subjects, search for things to say about them, focus
upon some aspect of the subject in order to handle it ef
fectively, and prepare to gather material for use in their
writing. They also structure their writing by choosing a
form or mode of discourse, deciding upon appropriate levels
of language for a target audience, explore the context in
which the writing will be written and read, and delineate
their purposes in writing. Some of these prewriting en
deavors involve thinking, discussing, reading, researching,
and other non-writing activities. Others call for prelimi
nary sketches, note-taking, sentence practice, trial runs,
rough drafts, and other work with actual writing. This
second set of activities I will call precomposing activi
ties, after the Los Angeles Unified School District's plan
for secondary composition. Both aspects of prewriting may
take place together or in sequence in an actual classroom
situation. Both are intended to get the student writer
under way, armed with ideas, approaches, and materials that
will lead to, if not guarantee, success in the writing task.
Traditionally, students are given subjects to write
about by their teachers, subjects designed to stimulate
thinking, research, ordering of ideas, and practice in
93
using language effectively. But in the newer model for
composition, students can also be given opportunities to
discover subjects for themselves. One method is to have
students keep journals in which they can record their ideas,
hopes, wishes, observations, gripes, or whatever occurs to
them. They can be assigned particular kinds of writing to
practice freely in their journals, such as autobiographical
sketches, character sketches of people or animals they know,
descriptions of scenes and action, mood pieces, responses
to auditory and visual stimuli, experiments with concrete
poetry and other poetic forms, meditations based upon some
stimulus either determined by the teacher or prompted from
personal experience, and philosophical explorations of
ideas and values.
These journal entries serve a number of purposes,
among them a provision of an outlet for creative expression,
a heuristic device which can later be exploited as a source
of subject matter, a practice writing book wherein the stu
dent can try out his or her skills without fear of being
"wrong," and a record of progress. The journal can be a
rich source of material and an aid to invention by provid
ing the student with a record of his ideas and by stimulat
ing further investigation of a subject perhaps only tenta
tively explored. Subjects can be determined through group
participation in events both inside and outside a school
setting, through class or small group discussions based
94
upon literature that is being studied at the time, through
class or small group discussions of current issues, through
communication games and values clarification exercises, and
through numbers of other sources pertinent to the classroom
and to students' lives.
Once the student has found or been assigned a subject
to write about, the task is to find something to say about
that subject. The writer can approach this problem in a
number of ways, beginning with what has already been written
and ending with a systematic questioning (problem-solving)
approach that will yield information. The journal is but
one rich resource at the student's disposal for finding
subject matter.
Two prewriting activities that generate ideas for
writing and which are based upon recent research in how the
80
human brain works are clustering and brainstorming. Ac
cording to this research, the two halves (hemispheres) of
the brain, joined together by a bundle of nerve fibers
called the corpus callosum which provides communication
transfer between the hemispheres, function differently but
in complementary ways. The left hemisphere operates propo-i
sitionally, moving from parts to wholes, making generaliza
tions logically. It is analytical, receptive to codified
knowledge, processing it sequentially. It is the languaging
side of the brain, able to handle syntax, for instance.
The left hemisphere produces linear thinking, processing
95
information by compartmentalizing or' "splitting" it. It
cannot judge overall form. The atmosphere, expectations,
and objectives of most school work is geared for the way
the left hemisphere operates: skills are introduced se
quentially according to the degree of mastery from simple
to complex, students are taught to think logically, even
courses are structured to build one on the other according
to age, grade level, or levels of difficulty of a subject.
On the other hand, the right hemisphere is character
ized as appositional, searching for configurations rather
than discrete parts, processing information holistically
rather than sequentially. The right hemisphere produces
analogic thinking and is able to establish part-whole rela
tionships. It synthesizes multiple images, qualities, and
events and grasps ambiguities. A good way to show the dif
ference between the left and right hemispheres is to use
the two words "order" and "structure" to characterize the
manner of thinking in the left and right hemispheres re
spectively. "Order" derives from the Latin ordo, ordini:
"in a straight row"; in a regular series. "Structure" de
rives from Latin struere: "to heap together." In contrast
to the overt development of the left hemisphere in our edu
cational approaches, the right hemisphere has probably been
neglected, partly because educators frequently do not rec
ognize or know the characteristics of right-hemisphere
dominant learners. While art and music classes may con-
sciously exploit the characteristics of the right hemi
sphere, the English class has not.
Clustering is a technique which engages the right
hemisphere, for it involves imagery, visual configurations,
and analogic thinking. It is a technique for collecting
thoughts around some stimulus, for finding a focus, and for
allowing a sense of configuration to emerge whether all the
details are there or not. As a technique for generating
ideas and material for writing, it engages the raw material
of one's experience and allows them a tentative shape.
Clustering can be used in journal writing, either assigned
or unassigned, as a discovery process. It works simply,
beginning with a word or group of words from which the stu
dent spins off other words and- ideas in free association,
letting one thing lead to another without conscious struc
turing. For brief journal entries, clustering should take
from 30 seconds to two minutes, just long enough to let
ideas spill out spontaneously and not long enough to let
"order" enter the process consciously. In more formal use,
clustering may be divided in two phases. First, the student
responds to a stimulus (sometimes a given subject for
writing) by finding and playing with ideas and generating
as many possibilities as can be thought of in a preliminary
exploration. Next, the student examines the preliminary
exploration by seeing the bonding between and among items
in the cluster. Then he begins to expand a discovered focus
97
within the subject, elaborates connections, clarifies rela
tionships, links ideas together, and explores further
connections.
Consider a common approach to assignments: the teacher
tells students to write on a given subject and to bring in
their papers for discussion or grading when they are fin
ished. The students get out their writing materials, sit
down and stare at the blank page, thinking very hard and
trying to make sentences in their heads to use in the writ
ing, and find the process very difficult to get under way.
By clustering first, however, either as a class activity or
a private one just before writing the paper, the student
reverses the process: he clusters ideas first, looks to
see what structure emerges from the cluster (he discovers
structure), and then makes up sentences to put into his
paper.
Clustering is a dynamic approach to generating ideas
for writing when used as an oral prewriting activity with a
class or small group. It incorporates both oral prewriting
and precomposing stages of the process. In this sample
lesson, for instance, the teacher led her entire seventh
grade class in a clustering activity from which sentence
writing (and sentence combining) grew and eventually became
an exercise in organizing and developing paragraphs. Stu
dents read a short story, "Sam the Saddest Sitter," orally.
The teacher then put the word Sam on the blackboard and
98
drew a circle around it. She asked students to give her as
much information as they could about the character in the
story and made a cluster of it:
Next, she asked students to look at the information given
and make a general statement about Sam. After writing this
statement on the board, she asked students to look at the
cluster again and list details that would support the gen
eral statement, pointing out which details would or wouldn't
support the main idea from those offered by the students.
When this process was completed, the class was asked for a
concluding or ending statement. When all statements were
determined, the teacher put the outline generated by the
students on the board in paragraph form, thus producing a
model paragraph which students then imitated in subsequent
exercises, each beginning with the clustering process. The
82
steps involved looked something like this:
99
1
no tbs
ii.
(partial outline)
Sam is athletic.
A. Holds boys' and
girls' records
B. Strong
Sam is a tomboy.
A. Wears boy's cap
B.‘ Hates dolls
C. Hates babysitting
(model paragraph)
Sam is athletic. She holds
boys' and girls' records for
track, tackling, jumping,
throwing, batting, running and
climbing. She is also strong.
"Sam the Champ" is what they
call her.
Sam is a tomboy. She hates
dolls and babysitting. Most
of the time she wears a boy's
cap. Therefore, she is defi
nitely not the typical 15-
year-old girl.
Obviously, further discussion and sentence work had to
occur before the final paragraphs were produced, but the
clustering process got the students off to a good start and
generated topic sentences, supporting statements, and spe
cific details.
Like clustering, productive brainstorming sessions
with classmates or others interested in the same subject
can yield ideas, associations, and different perspectives
100
that enable the writer to begin the information-gathering
process. Although brainstorming is unsystematic, exchanging
initial ideas with others leads to broader views— ways of
"seeing" the subject— or encourages revision of original
notions toward better, more productive ones. As a problem
solving device, brainstorming in groups can help individuals
suspend judgment until the problem is thoroughly explored,
generate a spirit of enthusiasm for ideas, and encourage
quantity of ideas. It helps those students discover a
wealth of ideas related to a problem or assignment and pro
vides the emotional support needed to help them get over
fear of tackling a subject because they lack ideas about it.
A study group at Harvard in the 1950s listed these behav
ioral reasons for brainstorming's success:
1. Less inhibition and defeatism; rapid fire of ideas
presented by the group quickly explodes the myth
which the individual often casts up that the prob
lem overwhelms him and that he can't think of a
new and different solution
2. Contagion of enthusiasm
3. Development of competitive spirit; everyone wants
to top the other's ideas.^3
While competitiveness of spirit may not be the goal of the
writing class, the spirit engendered by brainstorming in a
group helps to convince the individual that he, too, has
something to say, after all.
Other suggestions for the prewriting phase of the
writing process include meditations and silent thinking,
happenings, production and analysis of non-representational
q a
art, and many others. Certainly talking has proved to be
101
a productive activity, so long as the talking is a talking
together, not simply teacher talking at students. Discus
sion of the subject, either loosely or more carefully struc
tured, helps the student get varying perspectives, test his
own hypotheses about the subject, and try them out on
others before committing them in writing.
For most inexperienced student writers, a problem
solving device, a heuristic, in itself a teaching method
that encourages the writer to discover information, will be
the best aid to generate ideas about the subject. The heu
ristic serves a multiple purpose: it aids in invention, it
points out what the writer already knows about the subject
and needs only to be "retrieved," it shows the writer what
he/she doesn't know but needs to research, and it indicates
what further questions need to be asked in order to yield
the most productive material. Additionally, it may reveal
to some extent how the information needs to be organized in
order to communicate fully to a reader. I offer here a
brief review and examples of several major heuristic devices
that have been developed over the last few years. All of
them have been thoroughly tested in classroom application
and found successful, depending upon the nature of the
class and the uses to which they were put.
The simplest heuristic, one which is immensely helpful
and which can be handled by any grade or ability level, is
the familiar WHO? WHAT? WHY? WHEN? WHERE? HOW? set of ques-
102
tions. These six basic questions, systematically applied
to the subject, enable the questioner to walk around the
subject and examine every aspect of it. It is much like
brainstorming, except that students can use these basic
questions more systematically and thus more fruitfully.
This heuristic applies equally well to literary or non-
literary subjects. The sample illustrates how the student
might use this system:
To the student: You have been asked to write a short essay
about "Silent Snow, Secret Snow." But
what can you say about the story? We have
talked before about how to use the six
basic questions, WHO? WHAT? WHY? WHEN?
WHERE? as a handy system for finding in
formation, details, and descriptions about
a topic. Use the following outline as a
guide to gathering information and details
from this story. Add more questions in
each category as you think of them.
WHO? Who are the people involved in the story?
Who is Deidre? Miss Buell? Paul? The man
Whose footsteps are heard each morning?
WHAT? What happens to Paul in this story?
What happens first, second, third, last?
What is the story the voices in the snow tell
Paul?
WHERE? Where does this story take place? How can you
tell?
Where is Paul at the end of the story?
WHEN? When does the story take place?
When does Paul see the snow?
When do the postman's footsteps disappear?
WHY? Why is Paul ill? Does the story tell you?
Why does the story end with the words "peace,"
"remoteness," and "sleep"?
HOW? How is the story about Paul told; that is, who
seems to be telling and in what manner?
103
How does the reader come to understand what is
wrong with Paul?
How does the storyteller make you understand
how Paul feels?
With the tentative answers to these questions, and others
like them which will occur to the student as he pursues the
list, the student will have collected useful material— de
tails, reasons, speculations, evidence from the story itself
— for a prospective piece of writing about the story. This
list of basic questions applies equally well to reports of
events, analyses of expository writing, and assigned sub
jects in nearly every area of writing.
Other systematic questioning approaches are needed for
different kinds of subjects. If students are to write
about literature, this version of Kenneth Burke's Pentad
will generate ideas and details for an analysis in writing,
for discussion of a work of literature, or for better un-
8 5
derstanding of some difficult text:
WHAT DOES IT SAY? (Summarize or paraphrase the
piece to get at its content. A
poem poses a different kind of
summary than an editorial.)
WHO WROTE IT? (This is more than answering with
the author's name. What sort of
person was the writer? What were
his biases? What stance does he
take in addressing the audience?
What sort of j ob did he have?
Derive some information from the
piece you read; derive some in
formation from biography.)
WHERE WAS IT FIRST PUBLISHED? There's a' difference
in style, purpose, and editorial
policy among publications. What
influence is there on the reader
104
from the source of publication?
Would it make any difference if
this piece appeared in a prison
broadside or a distinguished
literary journal?
WHEN WAS IT PUBLISHED? GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION? (Date
and geographical location can be
important. Perhaps the time of
publication makes this of his
torical interest only. The
place of Solzhenitzyn's first
publication says a great deal
about him, about his book, and
about a political system that
stifles free expression.)
WHAT IS ITS PURPOSE? (There's a difference between
apparent purpose and real pur
pose in some writing. Think
about what this piece attempts
to do to you, the reader.)
Another way of dealing with the same approach, origi
nated by the linguist Roman Jakobson, allows the writer to
look at all the elements of discourse: an addresser, a
8 6
context, a message, contact, code, and an addressee.
These elements generate a set of important questions which
can be asked about any subject:
ADDRESSER? What can I learn about the speaker or
writer? How does knowledge of the
addresser influence my response?
CONTEXT? In what time and place does the discourse
appear? Is the message true or false?
Does it fit with my sense of reality?
MESSAGE? What is said? Do I understand the
message? Can I paraphrase it? Is the
message structured so as to have a par
ticular effect on me?
CODE What features of style are present? How
does the writer handle word choice?
figures of speech? sentence structure?
105
ADDRESSEE? Who is the audience? Is there more than
one? Are the apparent audience and in
tended audience the same? How does the
audience respond? Is the presentation
of the message appropriate to the audi
ence (s) ?
Contact is not important here because it refers to a medium
through which message is conveyed. It may become important
at times, however, due to interesting or static-filled ty
pography, decorative elements, or unusual print arrangement
on a page. The poems of e. e. cummings may be as interest
ing typographically to some readers as they are in content,
and certainly the two features are related.
Varying the perspectives (ways of viewing a subject)
develops ideas through a series of questions one can ask
about any subject, concrete or abstract. The set of ques-
8 7
tions which follow are drawn from tagmemic theory, a major
contribution to the art of invention. Tagmemic invention
focuses on discovering ordering principles and on psycho
logical changes in the writer; it also focuses on finding
arguments which are likely to produce psychological changes
in the audience. In a composition class, the system is es
pecially applicable to the non-literary subject and to
report writing. It is as easily managed by a junior high
writer (with certain modifications) as it is by the older,
more mature writer. Simply, it is productive of informa
tion the writer doesn't even realize she/he has already,
and it points out to the writer what she/he does not know
but needs to find out. The questions group themselves
106
into three areas.
WHAT ARE THE SUBJECT'S DISTINCTIVE FEATURES?
HOW DOES IT CHANGE OR VARY WITHOUT BECOMING SOMETHING
ELSE?
HOW DOES IT FIT INTO LARGER SYSTEMS TO WHICH IT
BELONGS?
The composition teacher might hand out an example outline
that teaches the questions to be asked and provides illus
trations of the extended questioning that elicits informa
tion:
To the student: Nearly anything, whether it be object,
event, or idea, can be looked at in dif
ferent ways and from different angles. We
call a viewpoint a perspective; a perspec
tive is a'simple way of viewing a subject,
listed here is a system for exploring our
subject further by developing ways of
viewing it. For practice, suppose our
subject is a TV set, perhaps like the one
you have in your home. We can view it
1. As an isolated, static thing in itself:
- What features characterize it?
- What kind (brand, make, model) is it?
- How tall or large is it?
- What size screen does it have?
- Is the antenna built in?
2. As a member of a class:
- How does this TV set compare with others of
the same size and make?
- Is there anything unusual or distinguishing
about this set that makes it stand out from
others like it?
- Is this set used for different purposes from
others like it?
3. As a process:
- The TV set may look very static, that is, un
changing. But it can be thought of as a
process, a changing, on-going thing. In what
way(s) is this TV set changing?
107
- Is it ageing? deteriorating? improving?
been altered?
- Has it been repaired? Parts replaced?
5. As a system:
- Look at the various parts of the set. What
separate parts does it have that, taken to
gether , make up the whole system of the
working TV set?
- How do the individual parts function to oper
ate the whole machine?
Then the student can be set to practicing this systematic
•i
approach to the subject (whatever it is), perhaps by
"charting" the questions and their answers:
As isolated, As meiftber As part of As process As system
itself of a class larger system of change with parts
The heuristic described above is based upon the theory that
in order for the human mind to understand anything, it must
be able to focus upon distinct units of experience, know
how it is different from and like something else, realize
the nature and extent to which things undergo change, un
derstand how it fits into a field or context, and know how
it fits into a sequence or on-going process. Odell suggests
that syntactic clues apparent in students' writing can help
us determine intellectual growth and offers a way of de
scribing writers' use of certain intellectual processes—
the ones outlined in tagmemic theory— to the end that we
can guide students toward mature thinking and mature
108
writing.89
For more experienced writers and for students in
senior high school composition courses, the heuristic that
begins by stating the topic as a problem, then developing
ideas for analyzing the problem and solving it generates
9q
ideas for essays and reports. The heuristic involves
these steps:
1. Defining the problem
2. Determining why the problem is really a problem
3. Enumerating the goals that must be served by
action taken
4. Determining which goals have priority
5. Finding the procedure to attain the stated goals
6. Predicting the consequences of possible actions
7. Choosing the best course of action
For example, if the topic is "After High School: College
or work?" the writer might begin this way:
Topic: After High School: College or Work?
Problem: Which course should I take for my future
benefit? Should I go to college and earn a
degree or should I look for a job and begin
earning a living immediately after gradua
tion? Which course will most satisfy me?
By working through each set of questions and by asking other
questions related to the set, the writer arrives at the end
able to draw a conclusion. The conclusion can be posed as
109
a thesis statement, from which the writer will develop the
paper:
Thesis Statement: Because I plan to enter a highly
skilled profession in the future,
I should attend a college or uni
versity in order to get adequate
education and pre-professional
training.
These examples do not exhaust present heuristic sys
tems and have not even mentioned the classical topoi. They
do, however, represent workable approaches available to
students in the prewriting stage of composing. It must be
emphasized that if these systems are to be helpful, they
must become part of the student's mental apparatus, orga
nizing technique, and approach to solving the problem of
what to say about the subject. It is not enough for the
teacher to lead discussions using these techniques, or to
distribute handouts on which they are outlined, although
those are certainly ways of introducing the techniques to
students. The teacher must help the student see the effec
tiveness of heuristics and then provide opportunities for
the student to use them.
Unless the student has already achieved a high degree
of syntactic fluency, an essential precomposing activity
concerns working with sentences to improve facility with
handling the written language at its most basic level.
110
Sentence combining practice can help the student gain the
"know-how" necessary to map intention onto structures.
Sentence practice may take a number of forms, among them
each of these, or a combination:
Sentence expansion exercises: For students who need,
at a very basic level, to "flesh out" bare-bones sentences
with adjective and adverbial modifiers, simple sentence
expansion exercises shows them some possibilities derived
from their own ideas and suggestions. Students will also
gain some insight into the restrictions on word order and
sentence construction imposed by the natural rulds of the
language. For instance, the simple sentence MERIDITH
LEARNED TO WALK can be expanded by asking WHO? WHAT? WHY?
WHEN? WHERE? HOW? questions about it and then plugging into
appropriate slots within the structure words and phrases
that further describe. Students may offer such structures
as
now
my granddaughter
a nine-month-old baby
sweet, little, rosy-cheeked (or some other
single adjective)
with two front teeth
yesterday
or similar ideas. By discovering where each of these words
or phrases fit with regard to other words already in the
111
sentences, students can expand the sentence to a more
descriptive Cand thus more informative and satisfying) one:
YESTERDAY, MERIDITH, MY SWEET, LITTLE, ROSY-CHEEKED
GRANDDAUGHTER, LEARNED TO WALK.
MERIDITH, A NINE-MONTH-OLD BABY WITH TWO FRONT TEETH,
LEARNED TO WALK.
And so on. Later, structures such as coordinate and sub
ordinate clauses can be practiced:
Meridith, WHO HAS TWO NEW FRONT TEETH, learned to walk.
BECAUSE SHE WAS SO STRONG AT NINE MONTHS OLD, Meridith
learned to walk.
By investigating the possibilities for sentence expansion,
students will discover what will and will not work. They
can see for themselves, without learning formal rules of
language, that a structure such as MERIDITH, MY YESTERDAY
GRANDDAUGHTER, LEARNED TO WALK WITH TWO FRONT TEETH is not
an acceptable English sentence.
Sentence Combining: I have discussed the purpose and
mechanics of sentence combining in Part 1 of this chapter;
here I want to point out the merits of a sentence combining
program that operates in conjunction with other activities
going on in the writing workshop, particularly at the pre
composing stage in the writing process.
First, sentence combining practice can help students
complete the process of preparing to write. For example
this sequence of steps in preparing to write an essay based
112
upon observation of a scene shows how sentence combining
might effectively be included:
Prewriting exercise:
(1)
Precomposing exercise:
(2)
Students view a film of abstract
design, such as "Free Fall" or
"Frank Film." Or they view a car
toon that moves very rapidly so
that they must watch carefully to
catch the background. Class discus
sion follows to elicit responses
and to clarify and delineate what
the students saw, heard, felt,
imagined, reacted to. The object
is to intensify student awareness
of a physical scene.
Students tour the school campus or
nearby neighborhood, taking notes
on what they see, hear, smell, feel.
They observe both as stationary and
moving observers. Or students are
asked to observe and take notes on
a very small area, forcing concen
tration on detail. They can pre
pare for the observation by choos
ing a heuristic, that will help them
gather material for their essays.
113
In the classroom, students begin to
organize their notes, writing down
sentences that capture what is in
(3)
their notes, then grouping the sen
tences in a manageable and sensible
fashion.
Students then can be guided to use
their own sentences in a sentence
combining exercise to produce vivid,
clear, interesting, densely tex-
tured sentences for possible use in
(4) an essay. Whether the actual com
bined sentences are used or not,
the practice in combining will aid
the student in seeing the descrip
tive and syntactic possibilities in
the details.
For example, student A writes these
sentences from details in his notes:
ALLAN WAS LEANING AGAINST A WALL.
ALLAN WAS LOOKING VERY UNHAPPY.
THE WALL HAD BEEN PARTLY DESTROYED
BY AN EARTHQUAKE.
With teacher guidance, or as a re
sult of having been taught sentence
combining methods previously, Stu
dent A can readily combine these
114
short sentences into ALAN, WHO WAS
LOOKING VERY UNHAPPY, WAS LEANING
AGAINST A WALL THAT HAD BEEN PARTLY
DESTROYED BY AN EARTHQUAKE.
Student B has these sentences from
her notes:
I LOOKED UP.
I WAS BLINKING.
IT WAS SMOGGY OUTSIDE.
Her combined version might be I
LOOKED UP, BLINKING BECAUSE IT WAS
SMOGGY OUTSIDE. With teacher assis
tance (or on her own after atten
tion is drawn to the need for fur
ther detail), or with the teacher
actually writing the sentence com
bining problem for her on the spot,
these additonal sentences may be
formed:
MY LOOKING UP WAS FAST.
MY EYES WERE TEARING.
THEY WERE TEARING FROM THE SMOG.
THE SMOG WAS GRAY.
THE SMOG WAS. SICKENING.
Student B then may produce the ex
panded, combined sentence I LOOKED
UP FAST, BLINKING, MY EYES TEARING
FROM THE SICKENING, GRAY SMOG OUT
SIDE.
115
In the prewriting stage of composition, an on-going
program of sentence combining practice can help students
learn how to expand, condense, alter, revise, and manipu
late sentence structures to the end gaining better facility
with writing. When an extended program of sentence combin
ing is used in the classroom, I suggest that exercises that
employ some kind of cue system (O'Hare's, for instance) be
given to students at the beginning of the program. That
does not mean free writing or uncued problems cannot be em
ployed, but it does mean that students will learn more un
familiar structures faster and will practice them exten
sively if they follow a cue system that tells them what
syntactic structures to form. Once these structures are
familiar to them— internalized and made habitual— then they
can work on problems that are less or totally unstructured
(no cues, no minimal cues). The danger of using a cue-free
system entirely is that, for many students, no new struc
tures will be learned. Students will just get better and
better at what they can already do. Of course, other stu
dents will begin to pick up new structures, particularly if
they have models to imitate or if the teacher demonstrates
and insists upon their using a particular sentence style.
A mix of the two methods would assure that those students
who need a step-by-step cued procedure for effective learn
ing, and those that see the whole structure almost instantly
without having to go through a sequence of steps in forming
116
transformations would benefit equally from a sentence com
bining program. For more mature students, say those in the
upper high school years and college, sentence combining or
modeling procedures such as those suggested by Willard
. 91 92
Pitkin or Joseph Williams and Rosemary Hake provide
practice in understanding and working with the semantic
relationships among sentence parts and between whole
sentences.
Christensen Sentence Rhetoric: Students can learn how
to write what Francis Christensen determined was the char
acteristic sentence type of modern writers, the cumulative
93 . . . .
sentence. Not only does practice m writing sentences
based upon the research and models Christensen provides
show students the greater possibilities in sentence expan
sion and modification, but teaches them to handle a diffi
cult but effective structure, the free modifier. It also
teaches students to understand sentence part relationships
as they analyze and learn to write modifying structures
attached to a sentence base or base clause. They see how
one part of a sentence "leans on" another and forms a level
of meaning relationship with it. For example, in this sen
tence from Eudora Welty, Christensen demonstrates the posi-
94
tion of initial, medial, and final modifiers:
117
Stretching away, the cotton fields,
slowly emptying, were becoming the color of
the sky,
a deepening blue so intense
that it was like darkness
itself.
initial medial final
In demonstrating the principle of levels of generality in
a sentence, he charts and labels those levels in this
95
fashion:
1 The gypsy was walking out toward the bull again,
2 walking heel-and-toe, (detail)
3 insultingly, (quality)
3 like a ballroom dancer (comparison)
3 the red shafts of the banderillos twitching
with his walk. (detail)
Christensen explains that three methods of sharpening or
individualizing the image proposed by the verb in the base
clause are first, by moving in for a close-up of some de
tail of the action; second, by pointing out a quality of
the action so the reader can better focus on it; and third,
by comparing the action to something else the reader can
then apply to the action. The second level of modification
relates back directly to the gypsy walking; the three third
level modifiers relate back directly to in what manner the
heel-and-toe walking was performed.
Another aspect of the prewriting stage concerns selec
tion of appropriate forms through which to address audiences,
118
Determining one's purpose for writing, experimenting with
the most suitable voice with which to address readers,
identifying a target audience and describing it accurately,
choosing language that fits purpose and audience both, and
shaping the message into a workable form— these are con
cerns that are best handled through discussion, practice,
and precomposing exercises before the actual writing of a
discourse begins. Of course, these same factors may cause
a writer to make changes in mid-creation, during the writ
ing stage itself,.and certainly during the revision stage.
But the process is begun in the writing workshop during the
prewriting and precomposing stages.
Students may engage in oral discourse that will lead
to descriptive, narrative, informative, or expository writ
ing. They may work with sensory words and connotations,
with metaphor and imagery, with an analysis of the extended
metaphor in professional writing; they may write expres
sively in their journals, exploring form and voice. In
preparing for writing in particular forms, they may work
with arrangements in chronological, logical, or spatial
order; generalize from an experience; transcribe oral usage
to Edited Standard English; work with paragraph organiza
tion and development; and practice compression and expan
sion of ideas and supporting details. If the writing task
is to be a particular domain such as persuasion' or analysis,
students may work at distinguishing fact from opinion and
119
controlling information through subordination and coordina
tion of ideas and structures. In identifying audience,
they may discuss and explore the virtues of honesty and
truthfulness in expression, of matching their purposes as
writers to an identified audience and its needs or demands.
Precomposing skills can include practice with forming
interesting opening and topic sentences containing clearly
stated key words, forming theses that call for development
Of ideas, and combining ways to develop an idea or para
graph. Paragraph development, sentence and paragraph tran
sitions, arrangement of events in a particular order, and
entitling will give students practical experiences to apply
to the creation of a written composition.
Paragraphing will become increasingly important to the
student writer as he attempts to frame ideas and intentions
into readable prose. Christensen's concept of levels of
generality in the sentence applies as well to the paragraph
and offers the student a means of understanding and using
the principles of coordination and subordination in organi-
96
zatxon. Students can learn, for instance, that the the
sis statement of an essay relates to the whole essay in the
same way that the topic sentence relates to its paragraph.
Ideas and details are then subordinated or conjoined in the
subsequent development. A paragraph may be charted in this
fashion as an illustration or model for students to employ
in their own paragraphs:
120
1 The first motive [for using slang] is to interest
and impress the people with whom we are talking.
2 Students of the psychology of language have
found that, most of the time, we are not trying
to give information alone; we are attempting to
impress the other fellow.
3 We are attempting to awaken his emotions: to
gain his approval, to win his sympathy, to
surprise him, make him laugh, harrow his
feelings, or excite his enthusiasm.
4 That is why so many talkers use gestures—
the less emotional peoples like the Dutch
use few, the more emotional peoples like
the Italians use many.
4 That is why so many talkers try to get
into some sort of physical contact (which
means emotional contact) with the other
man, tapping his knee, holding his lapel,
patting his shoulder.
5 Even to give a man a cigarette and
light it for him establishes that kind
of emotional contact, however fragile
it may seem.
4 And that is why in informal conversation
many people choose words which are not
standard— because they will be more sur
prising and a m u s i n g . 97
Christensen calls this kind of paragraph a mixed sequence
(of coordinate and subordinate elements). The paragraph
begins with the topic sentence and then downshifts for fo
cusing on a part of the whole. When the subordination is
completed (sentences 1, 2, 3), the writer gives illustra
tions or examples (sentences 4 and 5). In the illustra
tions, coordination becomes the means. Christensen's
approach sharpens both writer's and reader's awareness of
whether a sentence is coordinate with or subordinate to a
121
sentence preceding it, and will enable the writer/reader to
see when the paragraph is coherent or not.
Others offer varying approaches to the analysis of and
writing of paragraphs, each adaptable to secondary teaching
if explained and illustrated in language and models appro-
99
priate to grade level and student maturity. Winterowd,
for instance, suggests a set of seven relationships by which
sentences are combined into paragraphs and paragraphs into
99
essays. These seven relationships— coordinate, observa-
tive, causative, conclusive, alternative, inclusive, and
sequential— can be explained in simplified terms for sec
ondary school students and can provide the more advanced
student writer with an understanding of coherence among
paragraphs in larger structures. More useful still is
Winterowd's application of the TRIPSQA schema'*'^ which
Becker claims are elements expository paragraphs invariably
have in some combination. These elements— Topic-Restric—
tion-Illustration, Problem-Solution, Question-Answer--help
students develop patterns of coherence in their paragraphs
and lead them to an understanding of the usefulness of
transitions. This example from the forthcoming The Skills
of Language and Composition'*'^ illustrates the schema's
adaptation to junior high school level, specifically in
teaching the Topic-Restriction-Illustration relationship:
Here is a paragraph about the financial problems of
airlines, following the topic-restriction-illustration
model.
122
(TOPIC) Many airlines are having financial dif
ficulties. (RESTRICTION) Passenger frills are not
the only cause of these problems. (ILLUSTRATION)
Global Airlines predicted a large increase in travel
on its routes and ordered five Lockheed L-1011 jumbo
jets, but the travel increase did not come about.
The airline was stuck with airplanes that it could
not use. (ILLUSTRATION) Also, the cost of fuel has
risen; in 1972, jet fuel cost eleven cents a gallon,
but by 1976 it had gone up to thirty-seven cents.
Today, it is even higher.
Following several other examples of paragraphs featuring
some variation on the T-R-I schema, students are asked to
pick a topic (or are given one to start with), write a
topic sentence, write a second sentence that restricts the
topic, and then write several sentences that illustrate the
topic and its restriction. They are asked, further, to ex
periment with arranging those sentences in different orders
to see which is most effective.
At least in secondary schools, the expository essay is
not the only form demanded of students. Depending upon the
purpose of writing and context in which a work will first
be produced, then read by an audience, students will be
asked to master to some degree narratives, descriptions,
letters, precis, applications notes, and test answers. In
prewriting and precomposing activities, then, notes taken
from observations and turned into journal entries or sto
ries, forms of poetry such as limericks, advertising copy
that appeals to the senses or which uses a deliberate per
suasive technique, and paragraphs of personal observations
based upon sensory stimuli explore forms appropriate for
123
descriptive works. Anecdotes or original folktales and
myths, dialogues, captions to cartoons, dramatic monologues,
short stories, autobiographical sketches, ballads, dramatic
and interior monologues, paragraphs combining subjective
and objective materials, and narratives employing irony and
satire explore forms appropriate for narrative works. Given
the demands of competency testing and the expectations of
the business world, students need to explore the forms
needed in business writing, technical writing, and writing
for the practical world: letters, requests for information,
job applications, resumes, scientific abstracts, reports,
summaries of readings or discussions, and research findings.
For analytical and persuasive writing, students may work
with one-to-multiple paragraph compositions, defenses or
probings of statements embodying a common concept, edito
rials to express opinion or persuade an audience to action,
extended definitions, arguments for a' literary interpreta
tion, the short library paper, the library research paper,
reviews, and persuasive dialogues.
In summary, prewriting and precomposing activities
give students practice in eliciting ideas, discovering what
they do and do not know about a subject, and developing
their ideas. Such activities also train students to exer
cise flexibility with words and larger structures, refine
their sense of form, and acquire composing skills such as
sentence and paragraph writing. In addition, students will
124
experience finding a voice and an audience, thinking through
the entire rhetorical act to anticipate audience response,
clarifying and sharpening thoughts, and relating with others
for better understanding of communication. Finally, stu
dents will eventually improve their speed, comprehension,
skill, fluency, confidence, and competence in using their
language.
Writing
There is no neat line of demarcation between the stage
I have been calling prewriting and that called writing, ex
cept that in the writing stage the student applies himself
to the production of written copy. Any of several activi
ties I have discussed under the heading "Prewriting" (indeed,
others that have not been mentioned as well) may occur, and
probably will, during the time a student is acutally writ
ing. I have already noted the "messy" process called writ
ing, messy in that the writer may start, then stop and begin
again; may revise while writing; may alter course even
though an outline had been prepared; may continue to pre
write, in a sense, by rethinking a plan, doodling, and
fidgeting; may throw away what has been written and take an
entirely different tack, and so on. Because of these ac
tivities, the classroom teacher must be keenly aware of the
writing environment. Assuming a workshop atmosphere has
been introduced and maintained during the prewriting stages,
students probably are comfortable and somewhat confident as
125
they approach the writing task. However, students must be
given a quiet time, as free from distractions as possible,
in which to think, plan, write, and rewrite effectively.
That does not mean individualized attention cannot be
given to students during the writing process. In fact,
teacher intervention through conferencing is an excellent
way to help students produce their best writing. Frequent
interruption of the writing process should occur during the
prewriting stages, but intervention at the time of writing
serves as a guide to the student and a means of assessing
student progress for the teacher. A teacher-student con
ference of short duration— three minutes, perhaps— during
which the teacher serves as an editor, checking on the di
rection of the student's written work, is an effecitve moni
toring device. If the writing is going off the track, if
it does not clearly reflect the writer's awareness of the
elements of effective communication, if it needs expansion
of detail or development of idea at any given point, or if
the student simply needs to be encouraged and rewarded with
assurances the work is going well, the teacher-editor can
give immediate advice and make pointed recommendations for
change. The conference can be limited to one or two spe
cific problems at a time; the teacher-editor might check
only for paragraph structure or for diction, for instance.
If students are asked to write outside the classroom,
conferencing is even more essential. An assignment might
126
run for as long as a week or for two to three days. The
student brings in a rough draft or the beginnings of the
paper for the first conference which can take place during
class time or some other scheduled time. As the draft pro
gresses through several stages of completion, the teacher
can confer with the student, making changes, offering sug
gestions, reteaching a principle of composition, aborting
the process and taking a different direction altogether,
sharpening focus, talking the paper through to elicit new
ideas and help the student toward better understanding of
the task, and so on. The teacher here assumes the role not
only of editor but also of counselor, giving the student
encouragement and helping him build a positive image of
himself as a creative writer. While the teacher may give
direct, specific pointers on some feature of the student's
writing, she will be more effective if she does so in such
a way as not to intimidate or inhibit the writer. Finally,
conferencing must be part of the total process of prewrit
ing, writing, and rewriting; the technique is effective at
any point along the way. I have discussed it here as ap
propriate particularly at the point of writing, for it
eliminates that isolated and often helpless feeling too
many students have when they write.
Rewriting
I have mentioned before that rewriting may occur at
any stage along the way in the writing process. Some kind
____________________________________________________127
of rewriting inevitably goes on during the writing stage,
even if it is rewriting that involves reformulation of
thought or sentence structure before pen is engaged with
paper. More likely, however, is rewriting that occurs fol
lowing the completion of an essay, a story, a poem, a let
ter, or whatever form is asked for. The writing workshop
concept allows for as much rewriting as is necessary dr
profitable in shaping a "finished" piece of writing. Now
all the skills that have been learned are brought once
again into play, as the student acts as editor analyzing,
criticizing, and correcting surface errors and more deeply
embedded problems such as those of cohesiveness or shallow
ness .
Rewriting may be handled effectively through student-
teacher conferencing, again toward the end of helping the
student realize what alterations need to be made, what sup
plemental information may be needed, what the effect on the
intended audience is likely to be, what surface features
need to be corrected, and by all means what strengths are
inherent in the work produced. In a supportive fashion,
the teacher assists the student in self-criticism and self-
understanding; as the student matures, the attitudes and
techniques learned from conferencing will aid him in becom
ing an independent judge of his own work.
Rewriting can be effectively handled in the classroom
by grouping like problems together and discussing them or
128
reteaching skills pertinent to their correction. Small
group discussions, peer evaluations, student editorial
boards, and teacher-led discussions will provide the oppor
tunity to hear from a number of evaluators, eliminating the
too-frequent situation of hearing from only one critic:
the teacher. By sharing with others in the evaluating pro
cess, students learn the effects of writing-on audiences
and begin to understand the need for clear writing as free
from the interference posed by surface errors (spelling,
punctuation, sentence completeness, etc.) as possible.
Other techniques that are part of the rewriting process in
clude the use of exemplary writing or writing that features
an in-common problem, dittoed and handed out to the class
or projected on a screen for their viewing. All of these
approaches are forms of peer teaching, an effective and
theoretically sound pedagogical technique.
At the rewriting stage, the writing laboratory becomes
an important feature of the model for composition. The
laboratory may be simply a division of time— figures in so
many minutes of a class hour, or a day per week, or some
other system for allocating time— or it may be a physical
location where the class or individual students who need to
sharpen particular skills may go to work on their problems.
In any case, the laboratory is a shift in focus in the on
going business of course work. As a place, a room fitted
with study carrels and supplied with materials that deal
129
with topics such as sentence structure, parallelism, punctu
ation, verb endings, spelling guides, or vocabulary build
ing, supervised either by the classroom teacher or tutors
trained to assist students in individualized instruction
programs would serve numbers of students in their efforts
to brush up on skills. Or the teacher can simply declare a
skills period and shift focus in that direction. In-common
skills problems can be dealt with on a whole class basis.
Individual problems can be attacked through programmed
materials created by the teacher or purchased commercially.
Students skilled in one area might tutor less skilled
students.
The most effective use of the writing laboratory is
helping students learn editing skills that will bring their
writing into line with the standards of Edited Standard
English. Those features of editing are limited and almost
totally predictable, making it easy for the teacher or lab
advisor to arrange systematic programs for individual stu
dents. One activity, sentence combining, is less predict
able, but may profitably be a part of the laboratory ap
proach. If students have not had enough practice during
the prewriting stage in developing syntactic fluency, then
they can be given additional practice— and more focused
practice in particular features of syntax— in the writing
laboratory.
Students should not be made hypersensitive to editing
130
errors or they will lose the beneficial effect of the writ
ing workshop. Cosequently, too much time spent in the
laboratory may work to undermine the positive effects of
interacting with other writers and readers, and of learning
the entire writing process. The writing laboratory must be
looked upon (in this model of composition, certainly) as an
adjunct to the writing workshop, as a service to the indi
vidual student who needs to sharpen specific skills in
writing. It should not be given a disproportionate empha
sis or amount of time, nor should it become a place where
"poor" unskilled students are isolated and made to feel
ashamed. The laboratory must be looked upon by both teacher
and student as the place where learning and reinforcement
of acquired skills takes place. Finally, the laboratory
can provide the student the means by which he can become
independent through mastery of editing skills so that his
own writing will become effective.
Why Write? Some
Philosophical Justifications
The question Why Write? has been asked recently by
both students and teachers of writing; it deserves to be,
must be, and can be answered. Comments such as "writing is
virtually necessary in today's world," "it is the mark of
the educated person," and "it is necessary to succeed in
school and work" are common, but not unquestioned. Brit
ton's study of English school children gives some insight
131
into what students think writing is for— and, no doubt,
what many educators think as well:
From the perspective of function, we may note that
within the overall domination of transactional writing
it is transactional writing for an examining audience
which occupies considerably the largest proportion of
the sample. Forty-three per cent of the writing of
the sample was allocated here— a figure three times
as great as . . . for the teacher-learner dialogue.
The expressive and poetic functions play . . . a sub
ordinate role . . . . Expressive and poetic writing,
taken together, occupy a proportion of approximately
one quarter of the writing in the sample, of which
four-fifths is for the teacher-learner dialogue.
Marked though the association is, within the broad
lines of the sample overall these proportions are
subordinate to the place of transactional w r i t i n g . 102
Writing is for getting things done, primarily for passing
examinations and for showing teachers how much the writer
knows, then. Or look at one of the conclusions Emig draws
concerning the evidence shown in her study of twelfth grade
writers. After pointing out that school-sponsored writing
in secondary students is both a limited and limiting expe
rience, she adds that "the concern is with sending a mes
sage, a communication out into the world for the edifica
tion, the enlightenment, and ultimately the evaluation of
another. Too often, the other is a teacher, interested
chiefly in a product he can criticize rather than in a pro
cess he can help initiate through imagination and sustain
103
through empathy and support."
Typical of the guidelines for composition programs in
school systems are those of Los Angeles Unified School Dis
trict, where we find the following statements in the school
132
district's Skills Continuum for Written Composition, grades
7-12:
Written composition is the process of selecting and
arranging language into patterns that express personal
observations and experiences, elucidate individual
ideas and concerns, or convey factual material and
information .... Although modern technology has
produced sophisticated means of communication, the
individual must still draw upon writing skills to
succeed in post-high school training, the business
and professional worlds, and civic and social situa
tions, as well as to enhance personal e x p r e s s i o n .104
The district recognizes the multiplicity of purposes for
writing, but has a tendency to equate writing with survival
skills.
There is yet another typical view of the need to learn
to write, and that is one which seeks to preserve the
"purity" or eliteness of a certain dialect of written Eng
lish: edited standard or edited American English. After
some more laudable conclusions in the infamous Newsweek
105
article "Why Johnny Can't Write," the writer says this:
The point is that there have to be some fixed rules,
however tedious, if the codes of human communication
are to remain decipherable. If the written language
is placed at the mercy of every new colloquialism
and if every fresh dialect demands and gets equal
sway, then we will soon find ourselves back in
Babel.10 6
By implication, teachers of writing become the last bulwark
against encroaching barbarism.
While there is no doubt that people who cannot use the
spoken or written language effectively are, to some extent,
handicapped, there are reasons for teaching and learning
how to write that are more humanistically oriented. The
133
NCTE Commission on Composition^-*-*^ says that one's world is
his language, and that language helps one expand and ex
plore that world in order to live more fully. Writing is
important as a means of communication, for it helps one
discover meaning in self and the world. Walter Loban has
pointed out that writing is not the paramount language, for
we hear a book a day, speak a book a week, read a book a
month, write probably only a very slim book a year. Fur
ther, our need for writing is presently small and decreas
ing due to advancing technology. If there is no utilitarian
reason to teach or learn writing, then, why bother? Be
cause ,- as Loban puts it, writing is a way of understanding,
of coming to know. It is useful in clear thinking, self-
expression, clarification of self and feelings, and making
sense of experience and acquired knowledge. In short,
writing forces one to think deeply about any subject. For
tunately, this is a view held by many in the field today.
Speaking to the USC Rhetoric Conference participants
in 1976, Professor Gary Tate of Texas Christian University
said that the dominant characteristic of poorly prepared
students (those whose low test scores, lack of writing in
struction, and inability to perform adequately as college
freshmen or as young job holders lend fuel to the "Back to
the Basics" fire) is the inability to think, to think crea
tively and critically. Poorly prepared students do not
have ideas, and therefore fail to cope with writing tasks.
134
Tate's suggestion, and that of others in this decade, is
that composition courses emphasize rhetorical invention and
give students' heuristics and discovery techniques whereby
they can find subject matter and get it organized. Tate's
comments are in line with the widely-held tenet in composi
tion teaching that one learns while writing: writing is an
assist to clear, critical thinking. Developing the power
of thinking by reading and writing helps one to understand
and judge messages. Writing is a means of developing the
power of thinking, analyzing, generalizing, judging, imag
ining, and examining opinions and feelings. It joins clar
ity of thought with self-expression. Writing's purpose is
not to purify the language, but to cure impreciseness in
the organization of thoughts. Linking thought with writing
in these ways provide a powerful reason for teaching and
learning writing skills.
But writing must be put in perspective, for it is but
one way we deal with language, the central component in hu
man communication. Through language we signal our motives,
our desires, our intentions; we reveal our inclinations,
our beliefs, our goals; we assimilate our past; we specu
late and formulate the future. Language functions to enable
its users to identify with others, to overcome differences,
and to achieve mutuality. It enables people to become one.
It is the major instrument we have for achieving peace and
understanding, and therefore it has a moral function.
135
Kenneth Burke points out that language has the capacity to
transcend situations, that its impulse is toward bettering
the human condition and finding order in the midst of chaos.
According to Abraham Maslow, the disease of our time is
"valuelessness11; at the least it is a subversion of values
or a lack of community agreement on what they are. But men
do hold values just as they recognize facts and reasons.
It is the interpersonal activity of human communication,
with language at its core, that man can express, transmit,
and test his public and private knowledge and affirm his
values. We engage in language games at all times, some
times with ourselves but more commonly with others, and we
find meaning in those language games through the immediate
communicative context in which they occur. We are always
involved ourselves in the communicative process and, as an
interpersonal activity, communication is social interaction.
The English class enables the student to investigate, dis
close, confirm and criticize the soundness of his values;
it encourages him to become conscious of his choices and to
consider the consequences of those choices on others. He
learns to do this through writing, reading, listening,
speaking, and interacting with others. The English Lan
guage Framework for California Public Schools aptly summar
izes the role of valuing in the English classroom:
Valuing is the process of choosing, prizing, affirm
ing, and expressing feelings of like and dislike;
it is the process of determining the goodness or
worth of phenomena.108
_____________________________ 136
This crucial part of a student's growth and education must
be a part of the foundation of an English program.
We are focusing here on writing, but must keep in mind
that writing is but one feature of an overall program to
develop language use, and that the other skills are equally
important and should be integrated into a composition pro
gram. We must recognize that composition requires practice
to increase levels of competence. After all, forcing
speech into formal technical restrictions that include
spelling and punctuation, the mechanics of written language,
requires training, patience, and a good deal of maturation.
While writing utilizes one's personal knowledge as well as
acquired knowledge, the process can be expanded through
discussion, reading, and viewing. Composition demands
criticism and feedback for the writer from his peers and
the "expert" teacher. This feedback should include compar
ison between the formal expository writing usually taught
in English classes in high school with what real writers
really write, encouraging the student writer to draw some
conclusions useful for his purposes about the nature of
written communication. Thus, English classes should encour
age experimentation and self-discovery in the student
writer. And, yes, the English class should set standards
of reasonable competence which will enable the student to
cope with that kind of writing he will need in further edu
cation, in his social life, and in his work.
137
It should be obvious from the foregoing discussion
that a composition program must be a student-centered pro
gram. The needs of students must be assessed and a program
designed to meet those needs. More so at the college level
than the secondary is a view of the composition course as a
"service" course, which really means that the course serves
the faculty and other departments more than the student.
The point is that we must view a composition course— at any
level— as serving the needs of students. We must convince
students that composition serves them by helping them com
pose themselves, that is, create themselves. Learning to
organize, to develop a style, to find structures with which
to express ideas is a way to discover "who I am." Benefit
ing the minds, feelings, and concerns of students, not
school boards or legislatures or predetermined district-
wide goals, must be the function of the composition course
and its instructor. In spite of its unfortunate, market-
oriented terminology, the California State Department of
Education's RISE report establishes- this concept succinctly
in speaking of its master plan for reform of all junior and
senior high school programs in California:
The plan, designed to make a significant difference
in the way schools operate, can culminate in an
individualized system of education that is responsive
to each individual it serves. . . . This should be
achieved by . . . recognizing and accepting the
learner as the primary client to be served and satis
fied by the educational p r o c e s s .109
A final tenet of a philosophy for a composition pro-
‘ 138
gram— but certainly not the least important— is that there
must be adequate knowledge and training on the part of the
*
teachers who work with it. Teacher training institutions
must include extensive work for neophyte teachers in how to
teach composition, and they, or some other administrative
organization, must provide continuing education for those
subsequently involved in classroom teaching. Pre-service
and in-service workshops, supported by adequate funding
from local schools or school districts, can help teachers
keep up with research in the field, can train them in meth
ods that best suit their students, can provide them with
time and encouragement to design or re-design composition
programs that reflect current knowledge about the composing
process, and, through the acquisition of new knowledge, can
build self-confidence and provide teachers with much of the
authority they lack in dealing with the public, with school
system, with administrators, and with students. While
this is not the place to discuss the means of achieving
adequate teacher training programs, it must be recognized
that a valid composition program at any level can only be
111
as good as those who administer it.
139
NOTES
"'"Richard Weaver, "Language Is Sermonic," in Rhetoric
and Composition, ed. Richard L. Graves (Rochelle Park,
N.J.: Hayden Book Co., Inc., 1976), pp. 27-33.
2
I. A. Richards, The Philosophy of Rhetoric (London:
Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 3.
^Ibid., p. 92.
4
Donald C. Bryant, "Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its
Scope," Quarterly Journal of Speech 39 (December 1953):401-
424.
5
Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: Uni
versity of California Press, 1950), p. 43.
6Ibid., p. 21.
7
Wayne Booth, "The Rhetorical Stance," College Compo
sition and Communication 14 (October 1963):139-145; re
printed in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background
with Readings, ed. W. Ross Winterowd (New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich, 1975), p. 74.
0
Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 398.
g
W. Ross Winterowd, The Contemporary Writer (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975). See also Richard E.
Young, Alton L. Becker, and Kenneth L. Pike, Rhetoric: Dis
covery and Change (New York: Harcourt Brace and World,
1970). A few more recent texts have appeared in which in
vention plays some part, but most of these are college level
texts. Winston Weathers and Otis Winchester, The New Strat-
egy of Style (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978) has
an opening chapter called "Invention" which discusses ob
serving, experiencing, reading, and imagining under that
head. Other texts include some mention of brainstorming
and note-taking, but little else is offered that could be
called inventional. A source book for teachers of secondary
English is Stephen N. Judy's Explorations in the Teaching of
Secondary English (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1975)
which devotes a chapter to the process of composing, partic
ularly getting started through journal and personal writing
and through spontaneous, creative experimentation. The
most recent text to feature heuristics as a way to find and
explore subjects is Jim W. Corder's Contemporary Writing
(Glenview, 111.: Scott Foresman & Co., 1979).
140
Robert L. Scott, et al., "Report on the Committee
on the Nature of Rhetorical Invention," in The Prospect of
Rhetoric, ed. Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1971), pp. 228-236.
Reprinted in Winterowd, ed., Contemporary Rhetoric: A Con
ceptual Background with Readings.
1;LIbid. , p. 105. 12Ibid. , p. 106.
13
Janxce Lauer, "Heuristics and Composition," College
Composition and Communication, December 19 70, pp. 396-404;
reprinted in Winterowd, ed., Contemporary Rhetoric, pp. 70-
90.
14
Janet Emig, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders
(Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1971).
15
Richard L. Larson, "Discovery Through Questioning:
A Plan for Teaching Rhetorical Invention," College English,
November 1968, pp. 126-134; reprinted in Winterowd, ed.,
Contemporary Rhetoric, p. 147.
16
Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives, p. x.
18
James L. Kinneavy, Theory of Discourse (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971).
19
Roman Jakobson, "Concluding Statement: Linguistics
and Poetics," in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok
(Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1960), p. 353.
20Ibid., p. 356.
21
James Britton, Tony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex
McLeod, and Harold Rosen, The Development of Writing Abili
ties (11-18) (London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1975).
22Ibid., pp. 77-79. 22Ibid., p. 79.
24
Ibid., pp. 70-80.
25
Frank D'Angelo offers a survey of classification of
modes in his article, "Modes of Discourse," in Teaching
Composition: 10 Bibliographical Essays (Fort Worth: Texas
Christian University Press, 1976), pp. 111-135. Most in
teresting among the efforts to reclassify the modes of dis
course are James Moffett's, which sets up a scheme based on
the increasing distance in time and space between speaker
and audience, and Winston Weathers and Otis Winchester's
141
classification based on nine different kinds of attitude a
writer may take toward his subject and his audience.
26
See Frank Smith's Understanding Reading (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston^ 1971) or Psycholinguistics and
Reading, ed. Frank Smith (New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, Inc., 1973),.
27
G. A. Miller, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or
Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing In
formation," Psychological Review 6 3 (1956):81-97. See also
the following for reviews and discussion of research per
taining to the way language is transformed, stored in the
memory, recovered, and used: Courtney Cazden, "The Roles
of Language in Cognition," Child Language and Education
(New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1972), pp. 217-
2 35; Herbert Clark and Eve Clark, "Memory for Prose" Psy
chology and Language (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
IncT^ 1977), pp. 133-173; Kenneth Goodman, "Analysis of
Oral Reading Miscues," in Frank Smith, Psycholinguistics
and Reading (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979) ,
pp. 158-176; Dan I. Slobin, "Language and Cognition,"
Psycholinguistics (Glenview, 111.: Scott, Foresman and Co.,
1971), pp. 97-133.
2 8
Cazden, Child Language and Education and Smith,
Understanding Reading.
29
Two enlightening discussion of this point are m
Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say About Reading? ed.
Roger Shuy (Newark: International Reading Association,
1977). Barbara Horvath's article "Sociolinguistics and
Reading," pp. 95-107, points to the ways setting and situa
tion affect speech characteristics and, by extension, read
ing. "Reading and Pragmatics: Symbiosis," by Peg Griffin,
pp. 123-142, delineates four ways in which middle range
readers encounter problems with language in context and
offers some practical remedies for classroom use. Other
articles in this collection of essays further emphasize the
pragmatics and ethnography of speaking arid reading.
30
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie (New York:
The Orion Press, 1969). Bachelard maintains that imagina
tion is the major power of human nature, separating us from
the past as well as reality; imagination faces the future,
and is thus a becoming.
31
Wolfgang Iser, The Act of Reading, A Theory of Aes
thetic Response (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1978).
32Ibid., p. 111. 33Ibid., pp. 111-112.
142
34
See Cazden, Child Language and Education.
35
See Edwin Black, "The Second Persona," The Quarterly
Journal of Speech 56 (April 1970);109-119; Wayne C. Booth,
Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent (Notre Dame: Uni-
versity of Notre Dame Press, 1974); Burke, A Rhetoric of
Motives; Walter R. Fisher, "A Motive View of Communication,"
The Quarterly Journal of Speech 56 (April 1970):131-139;
Weaver, "Language Is Sermonic," pp. 27-38. See also a re
lated point of view in Ross W. Winterowd, "The Rhetoric of
Beneficence, Authority, Ethical Commitment, and the Nega
tive," Philosophy and Rhetoric 9 (1976):65-82.
36
E. D. Hirsch, Jr., The Philosophy of Composition
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1977).
37
Cazden, Child Language and Education, p. 195.
3 8
See especially Chapter 8 in Cazden, Child Language
and Education.
39
James Moffett, Teaching the Universe of Discourse
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 19 6 8).
40
David Bleich, Readings and Feelings: An Introduc
tion to Subjective Criticism (Urbana: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1975), p. 5.
41
Norman Holland, The Dynamics of Literary Response
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1968).
42
Bleich, Readings and Feelings, p. 95.
4 3
Charles J. Fillmore, "Toward a Modern Theory of
Case," in Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transfor
mational Grammar, eds. David Reibel and Sanford Schane
(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969),
pp. 36 1 - 3 7 5 .
44
Hunt reports on and summarizes his research in this
area in his article "Early Blooming and Late Blooming
Syntactic Structures," in Evaluating Writing: Describing,
Measuring, Judging, eds. Charles Cooper and Lee Odell
(Urbana: National Council of Teachers of Englsih, 1977),
pp. 91-104.
45
K. W. Hunt, Differences in Grammatical Structures
Written at Three Grade Levels, Cooperative Research Project,
no. 1998 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office of Education,
1964).
143
46
John Mellon, Transformational Sentence-Combining: A
Method for Enhancing the Development of Syntactic Fluency
in English Composition, NCTE Research Report, no. 10 (Ur
bana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1969).'
47
Ibid., p. 22.
48 .
Frank O’Hare, Sentence Combining: Improving Student
Writing without Formal Grammar Instruction, NCTE Research
Report, no. 15 (Urbana: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1973).
49
Those six factors, based upon Hunt's and Mellon's
original work, were the number of words per T-unit, the
number of clauses per T-unit, the number of words per clauses
number of noun clauses per 100 T-units, number of adverb
clauses per 100 T-units, and number of adjective clauses
per T-unit. He also tested whether the experimental group
would write compositions that would be judged by experi
enced English teachers as significantly superior in overall
quality to compositions written by the control group.
50
O'Hare, Sentence Combining, p. 29.
51
In "On the Acquisition of Planned Dxscourse: Writ
ten English as a Second Dialect," Claremont Reading Confer
ence, 197 8, Stephen Krashen hypothesizes that acquiring a
code called "planned discourse" (available to an average
high school senior or freshman college writer) is like ac
quiring a second language or second dialect. I suggest
that the morpheme cueing system used in sentence combining
helps a writer consciously and formally to learn the rules
of a second language. The cue ('S + ING) describes the
rule for using a possessive form before a gerund; it does
not state the rule in grammatical form, but it performs the
same function as a rule. Since the kernel sentences are
provided, the writer can use conscious "rules" initiated by
the cue given to alter the form of the sentences.
52
A good source for looking at recent research and
speculation in sentence combining is Sentence Combining and
the Teaching of Writing, eds. Donald Daiker, Andrew Kerek,
Max Morenberg (Akron: L & S Books, 1979). Articles by
Warren Combs, Elray Pederson, Rosemary Hake and Joseph
Williams, Arthur Palacas, Harold Nugent, and Daiker, Kerek,
and Morenberg among others cover topics ranging from how to
implement sentence combining in English courses to the role
new and old information play in sentence combining.
53 ■
William Strong, Sentence Combining: A Composing
Book (New York: Random House, 1973).
144
54
Strong's new book reportedly reflects his concern
with teaching cohesiveness in discourse. He uses a more
completely cued system than in the earlier book. 'To some
extent, students are encouraged to discover and then gen
erate appropriate structures by imitating a model. This
procedure is being developed intensively by others, partic
ularly Joseph Williams and Rosemary Hake. See their article
"Sentence Expanding: Not Can, or How, but When," in Daiker
et al., Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing.
55
Strong, p. 10.
56
See John Mellon's article, "Issues m the Theory and
Practice of Sentence Combining: A Twenty-Year Perspective,"
in Daiker et al., Sentence Combining and the Teaching of
Writing, pp. 1-38.
5 7
K. W. Hunt, "Early Blooming and Late Blooming Syn
tactic Structures," pp. 91-104.
5 8
Mina Shaughnessy, Errors and Expectations (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1977).
59Ibid., pp. 77-78. 6°Ibid., pp. 78-79.
61
See David M. Davidson, "Sentence Combining in an ESL
Writing Program," Basic Writing: Uses of Grammar (New York:
City University of New York, Instructional Resource Center,
1977), pp. 49-62.
6 2
John Searle, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1969), p. 16.
6 3
Noam Chomsky, Aspects of a Theory of Snytax (Cam
bridge, Mass*: M.I.T. Press, 1965).
64
See especially Max Black, Models and Metaphors:
Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell Uni
versity Press, 1962).
^Ibid. , p. 67.
J. L. Austin, How To Do Things with Words, ed. J. O.
Urmson (London: Oxford University Press, 1962).
/• * - »
Stanley E. Fish, "Normal Circumstances, Literal Lan
guage, Direct Speech Acts, the Ordinary, the Everyday, the
Obvious, What Goes without Saying, and’Other Special
Cases," Critical Inquiry 4 (Summer 1978):625-644.
68Ibid., p. 643. 69Ibid., p. 644.
145
70Ibid., p. 637.
71
See Black, Booth, Burke, Fisher, Weaver, and
Winterowd, note 35 above.
72
Emig, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders,
p. 92.
73
See Richard Ohmann, "Speech, Action, and Style,"
Literary Style: A Symposium, ed. Seymour Chatman (London:
Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 241-259, and "Speech
Acts and the Definition of Literature," Philosophy and
Rhetoric, Winter 1971, pp. 1-19.
74
Emig, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders.
75
James Britton, et al., The Development of Writing
Abilities (11-18) , p. ,29.
7^Ibid., pp. 46-47.
77
From "Pre-Writing: An Introduction" m a teacher
resources handbook prepared by the Huntington Beach Union
High School District, 1979.
7 8
From Contemporary Composition: A Course Outline for
Grade 10 or 11, also in leaflet form as part of the mate
rials for A Plan of Instruction in Written Composition,
Grades 7-12, distributed by the Instructional Planning
Division of the Los Angeles Unified School District, Publi
cation No. SC-744 (Los Angeles: LAUSD, 1976).
79
English Language Framework for California Public
Schools, K-12 (Sacramento: California State Department of
Education, HT76), p. 29.
8 0
See Jerome Bruner, On Knowing: Essays for the Left
Hand (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969); J. E.
Bogen, "Some Educational Implications of Hemispheric Spe
cialization," R. D. Nebes, "Man's So-Called Minor Hemi
sphere," and other essays on lateralization of the brain in
M. C. Wittrock, et al., The Human Brain (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977); D. Kimura, "The Asymmetry of
the Human Brain," Scientific American 228 (1973):70-78;
Robert E. Ornstein, The Psychology of Consciousness (San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1972); Gabriele L. Rico, "Meta
phor and Knowing: Analysis, Synthesis, Rationale" (Ph.D.
dissertation, Stanford University, 1976).
81
I am indebted to Gabriele L. Rico for these ideas
about employing clustering in the classroom as a teaching
technique.
146
82
I am indebted to Gloria Lindsay, Emerson Junior High
English Department Chairperson, Los Angeles Unified School
District, for this example lesson.
8 3
This report is cited by James L. Adams in his infor
mative book on creative thinking, Conceptual Blockbusting:
A Pleasurable Guide to Better Problem Solving (New York:
W. W. Norton & Company, 1974), pp. 115-116.
84
The best bibliography for studies in prewriting may
be found in Richard Young's discussion "Invention: A Topo
graphical Survey," in Tate, ed., Teaching Composition: 10
Bibliographical Essays, pp. 1-43.
85
Phrasing for the questions in the heuristic are after
W. Ross Winterowd, The Contemporary Writer, pp. 77-109.
8 6
Roman Jakobson, Style and Language.
87
See Kenneth Pike, "A Linguistic Contribution to Com
position," College Composition and Communication 15 (1964):
82-88; also "Beyond the Sentence," CCC 15 (1964):129-135;
Richard Young, Alton Becker, and Kenneth Pike, Rhetoric:
Discovery and Change; Richard Young and F. M. Koen, The
Tagmemic Discovery Procedure: An Evaluation of Its Uses in
the Teaching of Rhetoric, National Endowment for the Human
ities Grant No. EO 52 38-71-116 (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan, 1973).
8 8
Phrasing for this heuristic is from Winterowd, The
Contemporary Writer, chap. 3.
89
Lee Odell, "Measuring Changes in Intellectual Pro
cess," Evaluating Writing, eds. Charles R. Cooper and Lee
Odell (Urbana, 111.: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1977), pp. 107-132.
90
Richard Larson, "Discovery through Questioning: A
Plan for Teaching Rhetorical Invention," College English 30
(November 1968):126-134.
L. Pitkin, "Hierarchies and the Discourse Hier
archy," College English 38 (1977):648-659; also "X/Y: Writ
ing Two Steps at a Time," College English 38 (19 77):660-672.
92
Rosemary Hake and Joseph M. Williams in Daiker, et
al., Sentence Combining and the Teachinq of Writing,
pp. 134-146.
9 3
Francis Christensen, "A Generative Rhetoric of the
Sentence," College Composition and Communication 14 (1963):
147
155-161; also in Winterowd, ed., Contemporary Rhetoric,
pp. 339-351.
94
This example is from Bonniejean Christensen, The
Christensen Method: Text and Workbook (New York: Harper
and Row, 1979), p. 6.
95
Ibid., p. 122. The sentence example is by Ernest
Hemingway.
96
Francis Christensen, "A Generative Rhetoric of the
Paragraph,” College Composition and Communication 16 (Octo
ber 1965):144-145.
9 7
Bonniejean Christensen, The Christensen Method:
Text and Workbook, p. 252.
98
See Richard L. Larson's survey of form, "Structure
and Form in Non-Fiction Prose," in Teaching Composition:
10 Bibliographical Essays, ed. Gary Tate, pp. 45-71.
99
W. Ross Winterowd, "The Grammar of Coherence," Col
lege English 3 (May 1970):828-835.
100W. Ross Winterowd, "'Topics' and Levels in the Com
posing Process," College English, February 1973, pp. 701-
709.
■^^W. Ross Winterowd and Patricia Y. Murray, The
Skills of Language and Composition, Grade 9, forthcoming.
102
Britton, The Development of Writing Abilities (11-
18), p. 176.
10 3
Emig, The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders,
p. 97.
104 . .
Skills Continuums for Written Composition, Los
Angeles Unified School District, Instructional Planning
Division, 1978, p. 1.
105
Merrill Sheils, "Why Johnny Can't Write," Newsweek,
December 8, 1975, pp. 58-65.
106 ... c_
Ibid., p. 65.
10 7
"Teaching Composition: A Position Statement," Col
lege English, October 1974, pp. 219-220.
10 8
English Language Framework for California Public
Schools, K-12, p. 36.
148
109
RISE Commission Report Recommendations, adopted by
the California State Department of Education, April 1975.
^^See W. Ross Winterowd's introductory essay, "Devel
oping a Composition Program," in the Teacher1s Handbook
developed by the Huntington Beach Union High School Dis-
trict for in-service training, for a discussion of the
value of authority, commitment, and beneficence in teacher
training. For a fuller discussion of the theory behind
this practical essay, see W. Ross Winterowd, "The Rhetoric
of Beneficence, Authority, Ethical Commitment, and the
Negative," Philosophy and Rhetoric 9 (Spring 1976):65-83.
"^^For a model in teacher education and in-service
refer to the Huntington Beach Union High School District's
Ninth Grade Writing Program and Report on Project Literacy,
in Appendices A and B.
149
CHAPTER III
DEVELOPMENT OF A PRACTICAL RHETORIC
In order to facilitate application of theory to prac
tical classroom situations, teaching materials (specifically
textbooks) must be developed that reflect a model of the
composing process grounded in contemporary thought and re
search. Some clever, resourceful, well-educated teachers
can and do create their own teaching materials— essentially
producing their own handbooks and textbooks— as they orga
nize curricula, courses in writing and reading, units of
instruction, and daily lesson plans. But the need for text
books that serve the majority of classroom teachers, many
of whom still struggle under the precepts of older tradi
tional methodology, or who lack the educational background
and experience necessary to a contemporary view of composi
tion, has been pointed to by leading educators, both in and
out of the classroom.^ It is also noted that even those
talented teachers who succeed in teaching students to write
frequently do so on a trial and error basis, and they may
benefit from the guidance a contemporary practical rhetoric
can give them.
A contemporary practical rhetoric can serve teachers
150
and students of composition in several ways. First, it can
bring together concretely the best features of a modern
view of the composing process, reflecting sound research
that can be tested and applied. One example here is an in
clusion of sentence combining instruction and exercises
designed to facilitate syntactic fluency among young writ
ers. Older traditional textbooks that have been respected
and widely used fall back on prescriptions about correct-
2
ness and offer formulae for writing sentence types. While
a few students who happen to be interested in the abstract
notions of parts of speech and components of sentences and
who are able to master terms and their definitions can ben
efit personally from knowing how to describe their language,
it is argued today that such knowledge has little if any
carry-over in students' being able to write better sen-
3
tences, paragraphs, and essays. On the other hand, stu
dents who participate in a program that asks them to manip
ulate sentences by performing transformations on them (re
sult of the contributions of linguistic research) do improve
measurably in their ability to write sentences, paragraphs,
4
and longer stretches of discourse.
Second, a contemporary practical rhetoric can serve
teachers as a source book from which they can select those
ideas and materials best suited for their particular stu
dents. In a sense, a good textbook operates as a heuristic
for teachers by providing both a structure and a model from
151
which to build a course in composition.
Third, a text that reflects current theory and research
can serve the teacher— and possibly the community of par
ents and educators interested in student achievement— as a
means of instruction by updating their present state of
knowledge about the subject and by challenging previously
held concepts about how and what to teach about writing.
In other words, it can act as an instrument of change when
that change is warranted. This might be taken as either a
subversive or paternalistic point of view; nevertheless,
the authority and power of widely accepted and used instruc
tional materials have been known to exert great influence
5
in establishing and maintaining a paradigm.
This chapter will describe the development of a prac
tical rhetoric in the form of a textbook series for secon-.
dary school students. The series is being developed as a
response to the current and on-going need for sound instruc
tion in composition in our schools. These materials reflect
the conceptual background of the modern rhetoric explained
in Chapter I of this study, and put into practice those
features of course organization and pedagogy suggested in
Chapter II. In short, the series embraces and puts into
effect the new paradigm for the composing process.
However, the development of a practical rhetoric is a
commercial venture as well as a philosophical and educa
tional one. Because of this worldly fact, the exigencies
152
of publication and the demands of the marketplace must be
noted. Editorial decisions and demands play an important
part in shaping the final form of the textbook series as
well as in influencing content and style. As the series
evolved— and is still evolving— significant and substantive
changes in organization, tone, selection of materials, and
so on, will be discussed against the theoretical background
that informs the project. Even the authors' working ar
rangements, the everyday business of planning, researching,
gathering material, typing manuscript, and editing, will be
noted in order to illustrate further the validity of the
conceptual background of the series.
The Proposal and Shape of the Series
During the late spring months of 1975, the authors of
the proposed textbook series, tentatively called The Skills
of Composition and Language, prepared a proposal and over
view of the series to submit for the approval of the pub
lications board of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. W. Ross
Winterowd, the principal author, prepared the basic descrip
tion of the direction the series would take, establishing a
rationale for the organization of each book and explaining
major theoretical points. Patricia Murray, the second au
thor, made changes and additions from a standpoint of prac
tical classroom application and amplified explanations by
tying them to specific grade levels or student ability
levels. In essence, the proposal contained the following
153
material, which has been condensed from the original.
Part I: Composition
Chapter 1: Each book will open with a chapter on
reading, making the point that writers must be readers.
Taken together, the first chapters of the six books in the
series will constitute a modern reading program, designed
to help readers master reading skills and improving already
proficient readers' skills in speed and comprehension.
Most importantly, the first chapter will establish the es
sential relationship between writer and reader, reader and
writer. We will point out that most writing (but not all)
is intended for an audience; and when writers understand
that relationship, problems such as mechanics, language
choice, spelling, and punctuation become necessary elements
in fitting writing to the expectations of readers, not mere
dry run exercises.
(It needs to be noted here that this opening chapter
has since been moved to the end of each book, not because
it has been relegated to a less important position, but be
cause the authors believe each book should get students
writing almost immediately. The books now begin with jour
nal writing as the most productive way to get students into
the writing process. Teachers can "lift" the materials on
reading and use them at any point in the composition pro
gram— or in some other English program, for that matter.)
Chapter 2: This chapter (now the first in the series),
154
entitled "Writing for Yourself," introduces the young writer
immediately to an act of writing. The authors know that
the move from the world of dialogue, from the world
of television and movies, to the world of black
squiggles against a white background must be awesome
for some young people, perhaps for most . . . At the
most rudimentary level is the strangeness of the
"scribal sweep" whereby one runs a ballpoint or a g
pencil over a page and inscribes words and sentences.
In this chapter the point is stressed that correctness,
form, the rules of public writing are suspended, and stu
dents are encouraged to experiment. In fact, the most im
portant element of feeling free to experiment, to explore,
to take risks is present when the writer plays with words
and arrangements of words or when he can write deliberate
nonsense if he feels like it. Therefore, in this chapter
the student gets under way with interior monologues and
journal writing. While the seventh or eighth grader prob
ably will go little further than just "opening up," the
older student can begin to relate the use of interior mono
logue to specifically literary application.
Chapter 3: In journal writing, the concept of audience
begins to take on importance. In this third chapter, the
audience begins to take on even more importance, for in
"Writing About Yourself" the student works with the personal
letter and the autobiographical sketch. Now the full range
of writing problems gradually becomes more apparent, for
spelling, punctuation, and mechanics play a part in making
a letter or a personal sketch meaningful to the recipient
155
reader. Autobiography is a fully public kind of writing,
requiring an honesty and sincerity on the part of the
writer, an understanding of a well-defined audience as well
as the public at large, and an appreciation of the needs of
a reading public in such matters as style, form, mechanics,
edited standard English, and so on.
Chapter 4: In this chapter, students begin to expand
their abilities. "The Magic and Mystery of Writing" (no
longer the title as the series goes to print) prepares stu
dents for less personal kinds of writing by showing them
how to plan through formal and informal outlines, how to
gather and use notes, and, in the earlier books, how to
cope with the environment in which the writing takes place.
In the later books, a variety of concepts involved in our
print culture are discussed, such as the contrast of the
alphabet system with ideographic systems, the history of
mass reproduction of writing, the influence of the printing
press, and so on. (As the series evolves, however, only
the material concerning note-taking and outlining appears
this early in the series organization. Concepts about the
print culture we live in appear in various forms through
the Language section which is included in "The Language
Laboratory.")
Chapter 5: "Finding Subject Matter" takes up the topic
of invention and introduces students to a variety of heuris
tics or problem-solving devices that are not rule-governed.
156
By introducing students to simple heuristic devices such as
the Who? What? Why? When? Where? How? question set, the
Pentad (in simplified form), and the more sophisticated
7
system developed by Young, Becker, and Pike, the chapter
shows students how to make use of what they already know
about a subject and how to discover what to say about their
subjects through accessible and productive questioning sys
tems. Underlying the material in this chapter is the
assumption that students who use heuristics grow in their
ability to conceptualize and solve problems. The particu
lar heuristic systems offered are aimed at grade level,
increasing in complexity as students mature. Thus, the
concepts involved are accessible to all students, but the
more gifted ones can work in greater depth than the less
gifted.
Chapters 6-9: At this point in the development of
ideas and skills since the beginning of the book, "Writing
to Explore Ideas" starts students on expository writing.
Subcategories of expository writing are exploratory, ex
planatory, and scientific, and a chapter is devoted to each.
With the introduction of expository writing, a number of
concerns become foremost. The heart of each of these chap
ters deals with the writer, subject matter, structure,
style and audience.
First, the chapters deal with the writer and his or
her resources. The writer's responsibility in regard to
157
subject matter, to audience, and to choice of language is
discussed and illustrated. The writer can, through exer
cises presented in the chapters, capitalize upon his or her
previous practice with expressive writing as well as explore
new territory. Second, the chapters deal with subject mat
ter. How a writer establishes a point, develops an idea,
defines a term— such problems in writing are dealt with in
terms of specific aims such as informing, explaining, de
scribing, arguing, and so on. Third, the skills of para
graph development, coherence, and unity are discussed and
practiced in order to deal with the structure of discourse.
Writers are aided in both detecting inherent structure in a
topic (as in division and classification) and deciding the
most suitable structure for a given subject and audience.
Fourth, these chapters consider style in two ways. The
first is basic, such as the writer's ability to use the
syntactic resources of the language to put ideas into sen
tences that are meaningful and effective. The second con
cerns editing skills: the surface features of language
such as spelling, punctuation, and verb agreement. However,
in these chapters, style is related to the writer's purpose
in conveying information. Exercises in specific skills,
such as the use of the semicolon to join coordinate clauses,
appear in a separate section of each book, "The Language
Laboratory"; these chapters on expository writing are not
interrupted with drills or sentence exercises. A cross-
158
referencing system enables teachers and students to find
additional material at crucial points in the discussion.
Fifth, these chapters again handle the concept of audience.
Student writers will recognize that audiences vary, have
different needs, respond to a writer both predictably and
unpredictably, and contribute much themselves in creating
the meaning of a text.
As for persuasive writing, the series discusses both
the means and the organization of persuasion, although at.
the lower grade levels formal argumentation is not included.
The series "is interested in demonstrating to students that
8
there are good reasons for decisions which concern values,"
and stresses the notion that reasoning and valuing are re
lated. Propaganda techniques, advertising ploys, and logi
cal fallacies are introduced in order to make students
aware of the political uses of language they encounter in
their everyday lives, and to educate them in guarding
against either reading or writing nonsense.
Chapter 10: In "Imaginative Writing," students are
guided toward expressing themselves imaginatively in sto
ries, short dramas and dialogues, and poems. For narrative
writing, the material operates as a wedge that pries loose
from even reluctant students responses to "story-telling."
The chapter demonstrates principles of narration that cor
respond to principles introduced throughout the series:
story-telling involves a narrator (voice, attitude), plot
159
(action, organization), setting (context), and characters
(description, example, idea, content, etc.). Furthermore,
"writing and reading stories, plays, and poems enable stu
dents to see how and where and why communication hits the
mark or misses it— a valuable object lesson in matching
9
idea and skills to audience and purpose."
Part II: Language
Chapter 1: "The Grammar of English." This introduc
tory chapter to a section that deals with the entirety of
language skills and grammar establishes for both students
and teachers that language is in itself a fascinating study
and that, for some people, the technical study of grammar
is equally interesting. However, the chapter does aim to
convince its readers that knowing about grammar has little
to do with using language, and that "the grammar hangup
which is so prevalent among English teachers is one of the
most destructive factors in the way writing is taught.
(This chapter was almost immediately eliminated from the
first working•outline. However, the concepts upon which it
was to be based appear throughout the sections on sentence
combining, traditional grammar, and language use. The
originally proposed chapter was considered by editors and
authors alike too propagandistic and actually unnecessary
to the overall development of the series.)
Chapter 2: "The Word Stock of English." This chapter
discusses the sources of vocabulary, making the important
160
point that the English lexicon is eclectic, and shows stu
dents the cultural influences that shaped our language.
Parts of speech are defined by form and function rather
than by the traditional notional approach. Coined words,
new entries into the lexicon, jargon, loan words, slang,
semantic shifts and language change make up further mate
rials in this chapter.
Chapter 3: "The Structure of Language." The subject
matter of this chapter is syntactics, dealing with sentence
logic, the interrelationship of parts of a sentence, and
the concept of transformations. In the later books, this
chapter will reach a kind of syntax of units larger than
the sentence, discussing inter-sentence dependency and re
lationships that lead to cohesiveness in paragraphs and
essays.
Chapter 4: "Meaning in Language." For work in seman
tics at the junior high level, initial stress is on basic
considerations such as denotation and connotation. By the
twelfth grade level, such notions as presupposition and the
constitutive rules of speech acts will be introduced, but
in a non—technical way.
Chapter 5: "Figurative Language." Material in this
chapter is drawn from both homely and literary sources with
emphasis on metaphor and irony. The chapter will discuss
the associative and affective quality of words and groups
of words, word environment, and the effect of cultural
161
differences upon word choice. Stress is on the way lan
guage works when it is non-literal, but the presentation of
materials does not insist upon a sophisticated knowledge of
the terminology of figurative language.
Chapter 6: "Language Change." After a fairly exten
sive treatment of the history of the English language at
grade seven, the series does not deal directly with the
history of language; instead, it discusses the dynamics of
language change. Examples are drawn from materials that
appeal at grade level and which illustrate graphically to
students that language is responsive to and reflective of
their culture and history.
Chapter 7: "Language Variation." The main concepts
of sociolinguistics are covered in this chapter, focusing
on dialect features and differences. Language variation is
presented as a positive contribution to the rich texture of
the English language. Cultural and economic reasons are
presented to account for our notions of "power" dialects
and "substandard" speech. The chapter intends to persuade
students and teachers alike to understand and, eventually,
to accept dialect differences as a virtue of the language.
Chapter 8: "Levels of Usage." Here reinforcement of
the concept of choosing language to fit the occasion and
audience is presented in a full discussion of edited stan
dard English, informal and formal speech and writing, tech
nical and professional language, and so on. (As originally
162
conceived, the authors suggested this chapter might well be
subsumed under Chapter 7, "Language Variation.")
Chapter 9: "Language in Action." To further the dis
cussion of sociolinguistics in this series, Chapter 9 ex
plores language as a social instrument. Students are made
aware of how language functions in their lives and in a
culture's history. The language of advertising, propaganda,
emotional appeals, specially oriented language such as
Spacespeak, and the issues of sexist language make up the
content of the chapter. These materials are designed to
emphasize purposiveness and audience, and put the princi
ples of the preceding chapters into action.
Part III: Other Languages
Because the series intends to cover the broadest pos
sible spectrum of human communication, a short one-chapter
section on "other languages" is proposed. In this section
non-word systems of communication will be discussed. Paint
ing, photography, cinema, graphics— these symbolic means of
sending and receiving messages will be examined as part of
our everyday lives in communicating with others. Emphasis
on how symbols and signs manipulate and regulate our lives
and how an awareness of this fact can aid us in inter
personal relationships will help the writer in finding sub
jects and motivations for more formal written communication.
The junior high student can concentrate on "seeing" or
"hearing" the message of a sarcastic remark accompanied by
163
body language which belies the surface meaning of the spoken
words. The senior high student can learn how to make the
transfer from purely visual interpretations to the subtle
but frequently conventionalized means of conveying status,
sex, and age, or the complexities of writing irony and sat
ire. While the main purpose of the series is to help stu
dents become better writers with increased facility in using
the language, the authors feel a responsibility to alert
students both to the benefits and dangers of other lan
guages in an electronic, fast-changing world. Such mate
rial can provide both interesting and useful supplementary
classroom material and information by integrating the skills
of speaking, listening, and observing with writing and
reading.
Part IV: Language Skills
The proposal states there will be three sections in
Part IV: syntactic fluency, basic mechanics, and special
skills.
Section 1: "Syntactic Fluency." This section intro
duces sentence combining as a major means of enhancing syn
tactic fluency in young students. Showing students how to
embed proposition within proposition and giving them exer
cises designed to train them in writing increasingly more
mature sentences are the primary aims of this section.
However, research shows that students also improve in their
ability to develop ideas, to supply detail, to organize,
164
and to use the mechanics of English better as they gain
graduated series of sentence combining exercises that help
students activate their natural competence with language
and move toward better performance. Because sentence com
bining, as developed in this series, does not impose any
particular grammar system upon teacher or student and does
not presuppose any knowledge of a system of grammar by them,
students and teachers need only follow the patterns, models,
and simple instructions provided in order to engage the
whole range of embeddings in each book of the series. Stu
dents from seventh through twelfth grades will progress
through a series of gradually more sophisticated exercises,
but students at every grade level will work with the whole
range of transformations. Basic to the concept of the en
tire series is the authors' belief that students must learn
how to deal with sentence structure in order to get past
the fear of writing, a sense of inadequacy ab< ‘ iting,
an unwillingness to experiment in writing, and repeated
failure. This section is designed to demonstrate the neces
sity for syntactic fluency and to give students the means
by which to achieve it.
Section 2: "Basic Mechanics." A distinction is made
in this series between two kinds of skills. One kind, for
example punctuation skills, is a coherent system with es
sentially only one level of sophistication. Some students
syntactic fluency.^ The section introduces a carefully
165
learn that system; some don't, or won't. However, such
skills can be taught effectively in relation to sentence
meaning, style, level of usage, and so on. Or they can be
taught in terms of their mandatory nature ("Always capital
ize the first word in a sentence."). Section 2 deals with
another kind of skill, one that does have definite levels
of complexity, such as verb agreement. Thus, "Basic Mechan
ics" deals only with matters that can be spiralled, such as
parallelism, placement of modifiers, verb agreement, and
so on. Other skills,' such as punctuation, capitalization,
footnote form, and use of the dictionaryt will be included
in the handbook section of each book. (A drastic reorgani
zation of the grammar section has taken place since the
proposal, as will be shown in subsequent discussion of the
development of the series.)
Section 3: "Special Skills." The proposal leaves
this section open to suggestion from the editors and to
ideas that experience may lead to as the series develops.
However, the content of this section, geared to grade level
and the changing demands for learning practical or "salable"
skills, will include topics such as study skills (junior
high), preparing for college entrance exams (senior high),
and doing a research paper.
Part V: Handbook
The handbook is a reference source to answer a range
of specific questions concerning punctuation, the dictionary,
166
reference sources in the library/ forms for business let
ters, spelling rules, footnote form, and the like. Only
one handbook will be prepared, to be included in each book
in the series.
Throughout the proposal run five particular concepts
that inform the series. The first of these is the concept
spiraling. The series is to be coherent, each book
dealing with basically the same concepts in increasingly
more sophisticated ways as students move through them to
ward the twelfth grade. If students are to benefit from a
single book in the series, each book must be independent of
the others, so that students can enter the "program" at any
point without losing out on content or being forced to re
peat earlier materials. The Scope and Sequence (see Appen
dix C) graphically illustrates this concept in each of the
content areas. The only material that is not spiralled is
that contained in the handbook. The concept of spiraling
is not only theoretically sound (students will move toward
complexity as they mature cognitively) but also an honest
and practical way of dealing with the exigencies of school
management and the transiency of the student population.
A second major concept concerns how the teaching of
skills will be handled in the series. The series does not
isolate skills from a real purpose in acquiring them. Con
sequently, dry run skills exercises are not interspersed
167
throughout the books. At proper places in the development
of a concept/ students are shown the need for acquiring
certain skills and guided to the places where they can find
help. For example, if students are working on descriptive
writing, they can check the skills section for information
and examples of objective vs. subjective approach demanding
any one way of teaching English. The approach reflected in
the series is decidedly eclectic.
Finally, the series features a basic inductive approach
to teaching students. There is much doing and discovering
in each chapter, little mandating by authoritarian voice or
example of "the way" to write or speak. Related to this
feature is the design of Part I of each book which moves
students from personal, expressive writing in which they
can experiment without fear and for which they can draw
upon their own experiences and knowledge, through content-
oriented or referential writing, to imaginative writing
that utilizes poetic expression and focuses upon code. At
no point in the series is it assumed that, for instance,
expository writing is all that students should deal with in
secondary school writing; instead, students are invited and
encouraged to deal with all modes of writing, from the
purely self-expressive to the business and job-related.
The guiding principle that sets up a kind of macro
structure for the entire series as well as for each chapter
is derived from Roman Jakobson's schema of the variety of
168
functions inherent in any speech act. These constitutive
factors in a speech event (and here we may interpret as a
writing event as well) require an addresser who sends a
message to an addressee. To be operable, the message re
quires a context understood by the addressee, a code that
is common to addresser and addressee, and a contact or
channel and psychological connection between addresser and
addressee. This schema serves as a heuristic for the over
all design of the series, but chapter by chapter serves as
a means of focusing upon one or more of the significant
factors. In expressive writing, the focus is upon the ad
dresser and addressee, message, code, and contact become
less important. In persuasive writing, the addresser is
the more significant factor. In all writing acts, however,
the six functions operate-, and each is considered in chap
ters throughout the six books of the series.
From Proposal to Scope and Sequence
The first task in developing the series, following the
proposal as outlined above, was to write sample chapters
that would give the publisher (1) an idea of the organiza
tional plan of chapters, (2) examples of how exposition of
chapter content would be handled, and (3) how the chapter
would utilize student activities and skills practice in
connection with the basic concept being introduced. Such
materials, with changes from original proposal form, were
prepared during a series of conferences between authors;
_____________________________________________________ 169
but the most important feature of these conferences was
that the authors1 basic "vision" of how the series would be
organized and put into shape changed. Editorial comments
from the publisher helped to effect these changes and are
worth noting here because they indicate how experience in
the marketplace determines the form and content of commer
cially published materials to benefit the outcome.
Editorial advice on a sample chapter on Imaginative
Writing, for example, urged addition of more student activ
ities, particularly at the beginning of the chapter, in
order to get students writing more directly and in order to
avoid lengthy exposition and example-reading. In fact,
editorial advice has reiterated this point throughout the
entire development of the series. Each chapter is to as
sure many activities that involve students in doing a task
and must avoid extensive exposition.
Another important consideration in writing the materi
als for the texts is the level of vocabulary suited to
grade level. At the outset of this project, the authors
were writing materials which they believed were seventh
grade level; this seventh grade manuscript has since become
the ninth grade manuscript, primarily because of an edito
rial decision based upon the Dale—Chall Readability Formula,
a scale that sets sentence length at grade level. Accord
ing to the publisher's Department of Testing and Verifia
bility, texts that are successful can be read easily by
170
students at two years (in reading ability) below a grade
level. Thus, the intended seventh grade text was deemed
suitable for ninth grade in order to appeal to the broadest
possible market. Several states require a Dale-Chall re
port to be filed before a state adoption committee will
consider a text or series. A very good argument can be
made against this practice, for texts that foster reading
abilities well below grade level encourage and perpetuate
slow, poor readers, a condition well-documented in our pub
lic schools and in the declining scores on college entrance
examinations. The tyranny of the Dale-Chall scale might
well be looked into, as it affects the reading level of
textbooks.
State textbook adoption committees also affect the
language of a textbook (as well as its content in some sub
ject fields such as history and science) by establishing
criteria and guidelines by which schools and school dis-
13
tncts determine adoption and purchase of books. An edi
torial reminder of this fact early on helped the authors to
avoid sexist language and consciously to incorporate names
and examples that would reflect the multiplicity of races,
cultures, religions, and languages that make up the Ameri
can people. It was clear, of course, that textbooks should
avoid showing non-white American mainstream people in so-
called "native" situations; thus, "Li Po picked rice in the
paddies all day" would be inappropriate in a sentence
171
exercise. Editorial advice also pointed out that, for
state adoptions, any single text must include a total gram
mar program. Textbook series that fail to do this also
fail to sell well.
The Scope and Sequence
Between submission and acceptance of the original se
ries proposal in July 1975 and a major rewriting of the
Scope and Sequence in September 1975, a number of signifi
cant changes in organization and method of presentation
were agreed upon by authors and editors. The originally
proposed five-part sections had undergone both a collapsing
of parts into one or two and an addition of a section on
syntactic fluency separate from the section on grammar. At
one author-editor planning session in May 197 6, this work
ing model of each textbook evolved:
Part I: Composition
Part II: Syntactic Fluency
Part III: Grammar
Part IV: Language
Part V: Glossary/Index
It was agreed that each text should reflect roughly a 40
percent emphasis on the composing process (Part I) with 60
percent devoted to skills (Parts II, III, IV). Undecided
at this point were questions about what to do with the "spe
cial skills" the series would develop and where, logically,
reading instruction might fit in. These were and still are
172
important, not trivial, questions, for they reflect the
authors' desire to produce texts that develop relationships
among concepts and between concepts and skills, not texts
that separate and isolate the composing process from the
acquisition of skills.
During this time, sales features were developed and
established for presentation to the publications board. At
a conference between authors and regional sales managers
for the publisher in June 1976, the following major sales
features for the series were suggested:
1. Each text will present a synthesis of elements
within it (example: grammar in context), yet dis
crete parts will allow flexible use by teachers.
2. Students will be able to succeed (within the
materials presented, excluding students with
learning disabilities or other unpreventable out
side causes for failure).
3. Each text is a sequenced but flexible organic
whole; the order and sequence have a logic in
themselves, contributing to sound pedagogy and a
meaningful sequence of instruction.
4. The texts can be used with little or no prepara
tion by a teacher; the teacher is more free to be
a manager for learning.
5. The books will have an attractive format.
6. The series considers the variety of American
173
English and values the whole.
7. Career preparation and practical application of a
variety of kinds of writing will appeal to every
student interest and respond to the demands of
public education.
8. Instructional material will show positive models
and instruction.
9. The series features a problem-solving approach.
10. Instruction in reading attack skills will be
included.
11. The series will be in compliance with state
adoption laws.
The sales managers present at the meeting offered com
ments and indicated concerns which have come to influence
the direction of the series in practical ways. A spokesman
for the group cited the need for the series to capture a
wider market than their best-selling textbook series,
Warriner's English Grammar and Composition, and to offer an
alternative to the Warriner approach to composition. He
offered the opinion that the current emphasis on rigid ac
countability in terms of specified behavioral objectives
will swing back to a more philosophically and educationally
sound direction in the 1980s and that a series such as the
proposed would suit the new market. He pointed out that
organization must be immediately discernible and under
standable to purchasers and teachers, and must show that
174
all subject matter is included in each book. At the same
time, the series cannot lock teachers into a particular
system, either of teaching or of presenting a sequence of
instruction; the books must signal to teachers that they
have options. If the series is to be salable and thus able
to affect English education, sales managers need to under
stand that the series deals with problem-solving, treats
the practical aspects of writing, uses standard terminology,
presents positive models, and is aimed at all students at
all levels of ability. They need to be convinced, also,
that the series will adapt to a competency based educational
14
approach so popular in many states currently. Each of
these sales-oriented comments coincide with the authors1
intent in writing the series.
Following this conference and other discussions that
crystallized the essentials of the series, the project di
rector drew up a list of sales features which clearly de
lineated the strength of the series. A copy is included in
Appendix D. Summary comments in a letter to the authors
reaffirmed the publisher's confidence in the project: "I
do think that the flexible organization is a great strength,
the reinforcement a great strength, and that the roots in
15
sound learning theory . . . is tremendously important."
At this point, it became clear that the authors' orig
inal Scope and Sequence, submitted earlier in the year, did
not satisfy a market-oriented organization that demanded
175
very specific and detailed lists against which a final
product could be measured and found satisfactory or wanting.
Consequently, a second Scope and Sequence was drawn up, one
which was written in accordance with publisher's demands
and in terms of measurable objectives and product specifi
cations. This final Scope and Sequence served, at the time
of its writing, as a means of pinpointing the purposes, ob
jectives, content, and activities of each chapter in each
book of the series. As a practical matter, it has served
the authors as a working outline, although organizational
changes have been made since its writing and although it
has never operated as a strict guideline in composing the
series. In fact, the authors' ability to continue to de
velop the series by employing a macro-structure (the Jakob-
son schema) as a kind of general outline, and their minimal
adherence to the Scope and Sequence is indicative of the
creative, generational aspect of writing. This does not
mean that the series does not contain those specifics in
cluded in the Scope and Sequence; it does, demonstrably.
What it does mean (and this point is made in the textbooks
themselves) is that a detailed outline operates as a heuris
tic with which writers can discover and develop subject
matter without imposing a rigid step-by-step procedure that
*
inhibits experimentation and creativity. Once the series
is completed, the Scope and Sequence will serve as a check
list against which a factor analysis can be made for
176
comparison with any competing series.
It is obvious from the final organizational pattern of
the series that major shifts were made during the next two
years in grouping parts of each textbook into more salable
and workable patterns. (See Appendix E.) By 1978, after
three completed manuscripts had been submitted for accep
tance to the publications board, the series had been re
organized so that each book reflected a two-part organiza
tional scheme, with the addition of a Handbook section at
the end. Those two parts are as follows: "The Composition
Workshop" which contains chapters that develop personal
(expressive) and public (expository, persuasive, business),
special skills involving use of the dictionary, reference
sources, and vocabulary building, plus sentence combining
(now called "Writing with Variety"); and "The Language
Laboratory," which contains chapters on grammar (now called
"Using the Language Laboratory") and those original chap
ters intended for the Language section, on language change,
variation, word stock, and speech.
Furthermore, chapter organization has undergone some
major changes as the authors experiment with formats and as
the editors suggest revisions to enhance coherence. At the
outset of the series, chapters were to be organized by
first introducing an initiating activity in which students
participate actively in tasks related to the introduced
concept. This was to be followed by exposition of a con-
177
cept, e.g., self-expressive writing, through explanation
and example. Then a "Thinking, Discussing, Writing" sec
tion, based on materials and ideas introduced in the second
part of the chapter, would set students to activities in
tended to expand upon their inherent knowledge of language
and urge them to practice at least some aspect of the con
cept introduced. In every chapter, the macro-structure
would be pervasive, although not stated explicitly to stu
dents or teachers. That is, every chapter in Part I (on
Composition) would ask students to consider a concept or
skill from the standpoint of the writer, the reader, the
message, the code, the context, and any other that per
tained. Skills such as those demanded by Edited Standard
English were to be incorporated as was a consideration of
form and style. Also, the original concept of the shape of
each text was that each chapter of substance would be inter
spersed with a chapter or chapter part introducing skills,
running concurrently as a complete grammar; thus an organi
zation something like rhetoric-plus-grammar-plus-rhetoric-
plus-grammar would be the structure of the series. As the
series progressed, skills and exposition were both inte
grated in each chapter and separated out, cross-referenced
to make a more flexible system in actual classroom practice.
Thus, the section on syntactic fluency can be used in con
junction with the section on composition (and it is the
authors' intent that it be so used) or separately, depending
178
upon course organization, time, and the demands of class
room management. For example, some teachers in the afore
mentioned Project Literacy in Huntington Beach Unified High
School District employ the syntactic fluency materials in a
laboratory setting, separate from but related to the work
shop setting in which the act of composing is stressed.
Others incorporate sentence combining in the writing work
shop itself, leaving editing skills alone as the content of
the laboratory. In fact, "Building Better Sentences" (the
section's first title) can be part of either or both sec
tions, depending upon circumstances and student needs.
The current Table of Contents for the proto-manuscript
shows how chapter content by sub-topic has been reshuffled
in the interest of coherence, flexibility, and salability.
While the major chapter divisions in the composition sec
tion remain intact, content that had been subsumed under
the original heads now appear in separate chapters that lay
stress on certain skills. Because competing textbook series
feature these content areas, and because current public
dissatisfaction with education tends to focus on these
areas, whole chapters in the series feature writing research
papers, writing for the business world (primarily business
letter writing), skills in using the library, skills in
using the dictionary, vocabulary building, spelling, and
speaking and listening skills. In addition, the separate
section on sentence combining now appears in the first
179
division of the book, "The Composition Workshop," for at
least two major reasons: (1) syntactic fluency belongs
with other topics that explore the composing process, as
developing the ability to write better sentences and to
manipulate the language is essential to a student's ability
to put what he or she wants and needs to say into express
ible form, and (2) a conservative market for the series
might hesitate to consider texts that, to them, appear to
be "exotic" or "gimmicky" or which look too unfamiliar in
form and terminology. In a sense, then, sentence combining
is introduced more subtly than if a separate section drew
attention to itself, perhaps scaring off those who most
need to understand its efficacy.
Material that had originally been planned for a sepa
rate section on the English language, its history, develop
ment, structure, and social aspects, now appears in chap
ters that teach dictionary and library skills, vocabulary
building, spelling, research papers, and persuasion.
Omitted from the proto-manuscript in its edited form is a
discussion of a major dialect in American English, the urban
Black English dialect. This regrettable omission results
from the publisher's decision; however, a discussion of two
other important and illustrative American dialects, the
Navajo and Spanish-English, do appear as part of the devel
opment of the chapter on language change and variation.^
Some acknowledgment of the influence and structure of urban
180
Black English remains in the grammar section, as illustra
tion of nonstandard grammatical forms. Examples of non
standard usage are illustrative only; no pejorative comment
accompanies them to belittle any user of a nonstandard dia
lect. The grammar section does point out, however (as do
other chapters throughout the books), that writers must
make selections from among options in order to suit language
to purpose and audience. Instruction in levels of usage
and appropriateness in language choice is carefully woven
through the texts.
Due to the editing process that operates upon raw manu
script, chapter organization in the "Writing Workshop" sec
tion now follow, roughly, a three-part arrangement. First,
the concept is introduced (e.g., using journal writing as a
means of getting started in writing, a heuristic, a way to
begin exploring and observing one's word); second, exposi
tion of the concept which utilizes appropriate grade-level
examples to be read, questioned, discussed, and contemplated
is developed; third, students are invited to participate in
activities which enable them to work first-hand with the
concepts of the chapter. These activities are interspersed
throughout the chapters in order to set students to writing
and related tasks as frequently as possible. A major fea
ture of the series is that students are given writing or
prewriting activities as soon as possible, but are never
asked to do unrelated exercises or drills for their own
181
sakes. Chapters in the syntactic fluency section have been
collapsed, but may, in final form, be divided into "lessons"
that introduce a particular transformation per lesson. As
originally submitted, the syntactic fluency section was
divided into these chapters, which reflect a sequenced ap
proach to sentence combining: (1) an Introduction that
explained what sentence combining does and how sentence
combining works to help students write better sentences;
(2) Simple Sentence Changes, concerning the simple trans
formations of statement-question, active-passive, negative
forms, and It . . ./There . . . inversions; (3) Joining
Sentences, which includes constructions with coordinate con
junctions, conjunctive adverbs, subordinators as sentence
connectors, and joining sentences in a series; (4) Insert
ing Sentences, which includes various kinds of embedments
to create noun expansion, verb expansion, noun replacement,
adjective and adverb expansion, adverb replacement, and
deletion transformations; (5) Putting It All Together, which
provides extensive work in uncued sentence combining, al
ternative placement of sentence elements, linking sentence
to sentence in paragraphs, choosing topic sentences and
ordering a sequence of sentences in a short stretch of dis
course, reconstructing professionally written paragraphs
through the cueing system, and exercises that allow free
writing in which the student can use any of the sentence
skills he or she has practiced previously. These elements
182
appear as planned in the final form except for the omission
of the simple transformations. This section has been
dropped on the advice of the editors and in response to
comments made by teacher-reviewers during the field testing
phase. These teachers felt that the simple transformations
were so much a part of a ninth grader's already acquired
skills that they were not necessary to review at that level.
On the other hand, the author feels that these same skills
have not necessarily been acquired completely or accurately
by students for whom English is a second language or by
native English speaking students who, for some reason, have
been educationally handicapped. One solution as to whether
or not these simple transformations should be included in
the series is to incorporate them into supplementary work-
17
books or special texts for ESL students.
Lesson design of the syntactic fluency section begins
with a statement of the problem (a concept, such as delet
ing the relative pronoun in an embedded clause), followed
by a model for proceeding and three to five examples to
illustrate the concept, then a practice exercise in which
students imitate a model. When cues are presented in the
lesson, they are used for at least half the exercise prob
lems; some, no more than half, of the exercise problems are
uncued so that the student can test his or her newly-
acquired facility. Following a group of related lessons and
exercises, a set of problems that capitalize upon all the
183
skills previously introduced is provided. Occasionally,
"thinking" and "discussing" become the exercise type. Chap
ter 5 develops this approach extensively. As the series
develops, however, reorganization of this section will see
"free writing" exercises interspersed with the highly
structured ones more frequently, so that students are given
a greater chance to apply what they have learned in their
other writing tasks. In short, the intended "carry-over"
effect will be given a greater chance to occur. Also, each
lesson will feature only one concept or skill; following a
related series of these lessons, a "follow-up" or review
exercise will ask students to put several of the previously
practiced skills together. This plan has been adopted to
prevent both student and teacher confusion. The original
design is more pedagogically sound— that is, students should
be asked to practice new skills in a cumulative fashion
when they are inherently related— but the exigencies of
classroom management and the uncertainties about how these
materials may be used in any given classroom make the more
discrete approach attractive from a practical standpoint.
Validation
The problem of validating the content, theory, and
pedagogy of the series will be discussed at length in Chap
ter IV. At this point, however, it is helpful to note
three kinds of evidence that point to the success of the
series. It must be understood that this evidence is infor-
18 4
mal and tentative and will remain so until the textbook
series is acutally being used in English composition class
rooms .
The most substantive evidence comes from field tests
of portions of the ninth grade materials. Those portions
tested in real classrooms and submitted to the scrutiny and
review of professional educators to date are the syntactic
fluency section, the grammar section, and four chapters of
the composition section. The Blue Book, as the blue paper-
bound sentence combining materials have been called by their
users, has been field tested with ninth graders of the
*
Huntington Beach Unified High School District, Huntington
Beach, California, in the 1976-77 school year, and has been
used by students and teachers in the Project Literacy pro
gram in that school district the following two years. Re
ports from teachers involved in the program, both written
to the publisher and conveyed to the authors in informal
conversation, indicate that the materials were successful,
even in rough form. These few comments illustrate teacher
opinions about the sentence combining program:
The book is excellent! It lends itself to group or
individualized study . . . I truly believe the book
has helped my low ability students to create a
variety of sentence forms within their own work."
This type of book has been needed for some time.
The students especially enjoyed the round-robin exer
cises and the way the exercises are set up almost like
puzzles where you have to mix and match and pull from
insert sentences.
185
This entire book is excellent for foreign students
to use to acclimate themselves to English usuage
[sic].
My students' punctuation skills have improved dra
matically. The book treats punctuation skills as
being incidental to syntactic manipulation. Mv
students were very receptive to this approach.-*-^
The field test report covering the expository writing sec
tion of the series, level 9, shows also that teachers re
sponded positively to both the plan of the textbook and the
structure of its lessons on composition. One student's
comments acknowledges the success of one of the authors'
major goals by saying "I like it (the material on composi
tion) , because it has a way of seeping into some-ones
19
mind." A Learner Verification Report will be avaxlable
to interested persons upon publication of the series from
the publisher's Office of Testing, and Verifiability.
One of the authors has used the sentence combining
materials extensively in her own senior high classes and
20
provided the same materials to selected colleagues. With
minimal training in the use of sentence combining in regu
lar English classes (these informal tests were done in reg
ular 10th and 11th grade classes that study literature as
well as composition in semester-long courses), these teach
ers incorporated sentence combining into their courses of
study and reported that their students showed marked im
provement by the end of the semester in two ways. First,
they appeared to, and said they did, enjoy studying "gram
mar" this way and were less resistant to writing practice
186
as a result of changed attitude, pointing to the affective
benefit of sentence combining over traditional grammar
study. Second, their repertoire of sentence structures was
enlarged beneficially, some students even reporting they
liked what their new facility with sentences had done for
their self-confidence and improved grades. These results
are undocumented, admittedly, but they can be regarded
positively because the results match quite well with well-
documented reports of studies done by researchers in the
21
field.
A second kind of validation comes from comments and
advice of the publisher and editors derived from a sense of
the market, experience in editing other similar or dissimi
lar texts, and access to a network of advisors in the fields
22
of publishing and education. Reviewers of the materials
are drawn from experts in teacher training, educational
psychology, classroom teaching, and program development and
administration. In most cases, those aspects of the mate
rials they deem worthy and valid for a wide range of stu
dents are and will be retained in the series. Those aspects
found by the reviewers and editors too difficult, not at
grade level, not in conformance with state textbook adoption
standards, suspect theoretically, or otherwise not in the
best interests of sound education will be excised from the
series. This process is the usual one followed by a care
ful, caring, reputable publisher; it also is a kind of
187
evidence of the validity of a series that has undergone
rigorous pre-publication scrutiny.
A third kind of evidence to support the direction of
the series can easily be seen in the degree of imitation
from competitors. A proliferation of texts at various
levels, including college level, making sentence combining
of some kind a key component, attests to the general accep
tance of that approach among the educational community.
More and more texts available at the secondary level are
now making an effort to incorporate prewriting and revision
23
instruction along with their grammars and handbooks. The
approach to composition as process rather than as product
also is gaining noticeable hold— and this in spite of the
continuing trend of the Back to the Basics movement, mini
mal competency testing, and an emphasis on survival skills.
Problems and Resolutions in Developing
a Practical Rhetoric
The practical side of producing a series of textbooks
intended to capture the most beneficial and usable features
of the new paradigm for composition raises problems and
poses questions that cannot be sidestepped. While certain
technical problems occasionally interrupt the smooth devel
opment of the series, these can be dealt with expeditiously
in editorial conferences or left to the good judgment of
editors during the revision process. Other problems— or
perhaps they should be called matters of concern— are more
188
serious in that they influence the content and form of the
project. These problems fall generally into three major
categories: content and materials selection; organization
and form; and style (which includes considerations of voice
and tone).
Since its inception, the series' basic approach— the
theory upon which it is founded— has not changed. It has,
however, been added to in significant ways. The major in
fluence is the authors' general interest in brain research
and the specific possibility of viewing learning to compose
as very much like learning a second language. In this re
spect, Stephen Krashen's monitor theory, which describes
language learning as a conscious process, the result of
either formal language learning situation or a self-study
program, has assumed a growing importance in the series.
This theory is discussed in Chapter IV of this study and
need not be reviewed here except to demonstrate that, as
the series develops, its influence has helped to determine
somewhat the content of the texts.
A letter from the principal author to the project di
rector outlined the distinction, based upon Krashen's the
ory, between language acquisition, an unconscious, intuitive
process, and language learning, a conscious, systematic
24
process that needs monitoring. Because language learning
involves rules, the series is justified in talking about
rules or general statements of principles. When young
189
writers are learning to write, they need systems of rules
with which to monitor their output. Thus, the series pre
sents "grammars" at the level of the sentence and beyond.
Furthermore, the letter points out, effective presentation
of rule systems depend upon whether or not the learner is
left or right hemisphere dominated. The left hemisphere
learner will respond to and learn rapidly from a rule system
which, when followed accurately, guarantees the intended re
sult (an algorithm). The right hemisphere dominated learner
will respond to a heuristic, which is not rule-governed;
the use will apply the heuristic "rules" in any sequence.
Thus, every chapter and as many exercises as is practicable
should utilize both systems in order to affect as many
learners as possible. A chapter in sentence combining, for
instance, begins by stating general rules, follows with ex
amples of the rule, presents a step-by-step rule-governed
procedure in which students work through a problem in logi
cal, sequential order, and ends with exercises designed to
help students increase their creative ability to use lan
guage and solve language problems. In short, the effort to
include both algorithms and heuristics in every chapter is
aimed at guaranteeing every student success, no matter what
his or her natural learning strategies might be. In a plan
ning session with regional sales managers, this principle
was explained in order to give those who would be marketing
the series to either informed or uninformed buyers some
190
25
notion of the content of chapters. The authors cited
their plan to provide rule-governed procedures, discovery
procedures, and creative procedures throughout their work.
In a later editorial conference, it was reiterated that
"every student can attain some success" should be the guid
ing principle throughout the series. Noting that "everyone"
does "skills" because of the current public demand, the
authors and project director agreed that the series must
attend to the notions of hemisphericity and learning strat
egies in order to keep abreast of the major theoretical
influence in educational materials for the next few years.
And again, the design of lessons should be that, at the end
of statements of principle, followed by example of princi
ple, followed by exercises based upon the principle, some
means of "pulling it all together" as the right-hemisphere
2 6
student might do it must be included.
Another kind of addition to the content of the series
developed in tandem with current trends in public school
education, particularly that which emphasizes salable skills
acquisition and survival skills training. Consequently, the
series includes, at every grade level, more material devel
oping oral language skills, from informal discussion in the
classroom to organized oral reports to formal public speak-
27
ing. In the section on "Writing to Persuade," extensive
examples of advertising language ploys and propaganda tech
niques are included in order to make students aware of the
191
effect of both print and electronic media on them daily.
2 8
The Britton study has led to a growing appreciation among
educators of the need for "writing across the curriculum";
to answer this need, the series will include both reading
selections and writing opportunities that draw from science,
29
mathematics, history, homemaking, and the arts. Special
30
sections will be devoted to reading in the content areas.
In addition, considerable space is devoted in each text to
skills in letter writing (particularly business letter
writing), and other tasks such as completing forms or writ
ing memoranda and reports, tasks students are certain to
31
have to face in the business world.
In order to assure a series that includes all the topic
areas generally taught at the secondary level and in order
to be competitive with other series, a factor analysis of
content book-by-book and sometimes chapter-by-chapter was
undertaken. For example, before the chapters in the Lan
guage section for Book 9 was written, one author surveyed
competing texts to determine the topics included. This fac
tor analysis enabled her to make sure no significant topic
would be omitted and served as a basic outline to follow'in.
composing. Subsequently, this material has been rearranged
by editors, but no topic has been entirely omitted even
though it may appear under some head other than Language
Variety or Language in Action. The project director pro
vided the authors and the publication board with a competi-
192
tion analysis showing not only the topics covered in the
five most popular texts, but also the number of pages de
voted to specific topics of importance. While the analysis
compared the Warriner series with four others, it serves as
a checklist for the present developing series. The most
instructive result of this analysis is the appalling lack
of emphasis in any of the five leading series on composing
skills per se; rather, most space is devoted to an analysis
of language under such heads as "Parts of Speech," "Capi
talization," "Correct Verb Use," and so on.
As the series develops, an occasional problem with
content and/or the direction of a specific chapter requires
changes and compromises. For example, after a careful anal
ysis of competing texts and a certain amount of rethinking
what students can reasonably be asked to work with, it was
agreed that the seventh and eighth grade texts would not
include a chapter on persuasion, but would incorporate ele
ments of persuasion such as clear thinking into existing
manuscript. Students in the junior high grades would deal
with diamante or cinque and concrete poetry— poetry that
would be more accessible to them— rather than with forms
32
such as the sonnet.
During one stage of revision, the creative writing
chapter for grade nine underwent a series of changes, one
of them regarding content. Originally, the manuscript in
cluded a selection from American Indian legend that illus-
193
trated the point about how stories are told. An editorial
change substituted a very brief summary of The Odyssey
instead that did not serve the purpose of showing students
the nature of narration. Some of the original poetry se
lections were also removed and others substituted. Two or
three editorial conferences later, reasonable compromises
were made which will allow the most usable and appropriate
complete (not summarized) selections to appear in each text
book. Decisions about content are based on several factors,
among them appropriateness, interest, the strictures of
textbook adoption committees, taste, readability, and the
degree to which content relates to the intent of the series
33
and the needs of the audxence.
Typical of these problems is the instance in which the
authors were told that a selection from Agatha Christie's
Witness for the Prosecution could not be used because of
her estate's refusal to allow excerpts of a Christie work
to appear in other publications. Consequently, a carefully
built section that depended upon the selection has to be
rewritten around another equally appropriate one. While
instances such as this one are not frequent, they do slow
down and complicate the composing and editing process.
A more serious problem occurred when, during an early
revision, editors deleted the chapter on "Finding Subject
Matter" in the ninth grade text. It was necessary to argue
for the theoretical validity and necessity to the integrity
194
of the series for the inclusion of the material on inven
tion. This chapter was one of four included in a field
test; a gratifying result is that teachers found the mate
rial interesting and easy to work with, at least in part
justifying its retention. In final form, however, the
material may appear not in a separate chapter hut inter
spersed throughout the composition section as prewriting
exercises.
Editorial concerns about organization and form are un
derstandable and reflect, in a sense, the difference between
the emphasis on process and product. The business-oriented
publisher must worry about the appearance and marketability
of his product, thus the concern in the development of the
series about where things go, in which part of the book,
and why they go there and not somewhere else. On the other
hand, the writers are caught up in the composing process,
although they do have a vision of how the series will look
in the end. Nowhere else is this difference more clearly
illustrated than in the publisher's insistence upon a de
tailed Scope and Sequence and the authors' impatience with
having to devise what seemed to them a time-consuming and
probably unworkable structure imposed upon what ought to be
34
kept a fluid, changing, growing process.
Another instance of editorial attitude about organiza
tion is reflected in a letter from the project director to
one of the authors, speaking of the revised organization of
195
the proto-manuscript and its table of contents: "[the au
thor] calls the table of contents my fantasy rather than
his reality, but I feel it clearly reflects the intent of
the program. Our salespeople have given it enthusiastic
„ 35
reviews.
Accompanying this editorial concern about organization
is one involving the authors' working methods. To allevi
ate the editors' fears that two writers cannot adequately
work together on the same manuscript without an arrangement
that has them working from an outline, at the same time,
and possibly in close physical proximity, a letter to the
project director affirmed that both authors do work together
developing a plan of attack, agree upon the division of
labor, and chart their progress so that each understands
what is expected in terms of output. The letter states
that the two authors "agree on most substantive issues, and
we have worked together long enough that we don11 have to
spend hours trying to explain our individual viewpoints. I
36
think we have a virtually perfect working arrangement."
The principal factor that allows two writers to work sepa
rately yet in tandem is the conceptual framework, specify
ing the Jakobson schema, within which they operate.
The matter of tone, a point on which the authors have
had to bow to publisher insistence, has been a major diffi
culty. Unlike the typical school text with its short,
simple sentences and its anonymous narrator, the present
196
series was intended to feature examples of well-written
prose in its exposition as well as its selections and illus
trations. For example, throughout the series students are
encouraged and given the opportunity to "write better," to
improve their syntactic fluency, to expand their minimal
sentence structures, and so on. When the material devel
oped a point about parallel structure, repetition, balance,
or cadence, the expository development of that point could
well illustrate by showing parallel structure, repetition,
or whatever, as well as telling about it. However, some
resistance to this authorial intention comes from publisher
adherence to tradition, particularly in the case of using
the "I" voice in addressing students directly from the page.
Although the project director was "initally pleased by the
37
warm tone I find you both using," he later said that "as
your editor and friend" the use of "I" would wipe out the
series, for people will not accept that convention and stu-
3 8
dents find the tone patronizing. A second reason for
editorial resistance of the authors' original concept of
the style that would infuse the series with a warm, infor
mal, friendly but not patronizing or condescending voice is
the dependence upon the Dale Chall Readability Formual,
which sets the standard for sentence length and vocabulary
level. This point has been made elsewhere in this study,
but is reiterated here as an instance of one influence upon
what will ultimately be a less informal, less personable,
197
a
less interesting, more "teacherly" style in the series.
Students working with the books will not have as much sense
of a human being behind the words as the authors had hoped.
Still, the program in composition itself will not be seri
ously affected, and the authors will have ultimate control
over determining whether anything said in the texts is well
or poorly written and is expression in print they are
pleased to have attributed to them.
Conclusions
The development of a practical rhetoric in the form of
a series of textbooks for secondary school students may be
summarized by the following claims.
1. The series reflects a model of the composing pro
cess based upon contemporary thought and research in sev
eral related fields that contribute substance and insight
to the teaching of composition: literature, rhetoric, phi
losophy, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and English
education. The series is in keeping with the emerging new
paradigm for composition and will, in fact, contribute to
ward educating teachers and students alike in theoretically
and pedagogically sound new concepts about writing.
2. The series presents a view of composition as pro
cess. It does so by advocating a workshop approach in
teaching and practicing writing skills, an approach that
encourages experimentation and self-discovery. The stages
in the process of prewriting, writing, rewriting, and
198
editing are each discussed at length and their interrela
tionships emphasized. No one mode of discourse takes up an
inordinate amount of time and attention; all modes of dis
course are considered and practiced in each book of the
series.
3. The importance of students' developing syntactic
fluency is stressed. This facility with language is devel
oped not to supplant grammar study, but to supplement and
complement it. Skills are taught as necessary to facili
tate effective communication; they are not isolated as a
study in themselves.
4. The series develops all facets of language learn
ing. While the focus is on the composing process, the se
ries admits relevant studies in sociolinguistic topics and
in reading. The emphasis is upon helping students become
aware of the uses to which their language is put, or can be
put. Audience and writer's purpose set the requirements
for effective communication in a real world context.
5. The problem-solving approach of the series, espe
cially the inclusion of inventional schemes to help students
prepare to write and then follow through with content and
organization, distinguishes this series from competing ones
and marks it as uniquely suited for both current and future
use in English education.
6. The spiraling design of the series allows every
grade level student to engage in every aspect of composi-
199
tion. A student may enter the program at any level and
find a complete program of instruction.
7. Flexibility of materials and arrangement allow
maximum use by teachers. There is a synthesis of elements,
yet topics are separated so that parts may be used as well
as the whole. This flexibility is designed to meet the
demands of practical classroom use.
8. The series meets current and on-going needs of
students and guarantees that students can succeed at some
point in the program. The series is responsive to the needs
of public and private education and takes into account those
standards of achievement set by state and local school
districts.
200
NOTES
Richard E. Young points out that the "overt features
of the (current traditional) paradigm have provided the
content and organizational features for hundreds of anthol
ogies and composition texts for three generations" and goes
on to say that a large proportion of texts are devoted to
the sentence, the paragraph, usage, and style. See "Para
digms and Problems: Needed Research in Rhetorical Inven
tion," in Research on Composing: Points of Departure, ed.
Charles Cooper and Lee Odell (Urbana: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1978), p. 31.
2
The foremost example is Warriner's English Grammar
and Composition, Heritage Edition (New York: Harcourt
Brace and: World;,., 1969) .
3
See the report on the New Zealand study which com
pared the effect of studying traditional or transformational
grammar or no grammar at all upon the progress of school
children over a three-year period. Researchers found no
significant differences in writing achievement between the
three groups studied. W. Elley, J. Barham, H. Lamb, and
M. Wylie, "The Role of Grammar in Secondary School English
Curriculum," Research in the Teaching of English 10 (1976):
5-21.
4
The major studies here are John C. Mellon's Transfor
mational Sentence Combining (Urbana, 111.: NCTE, 1969) and
Frank O'Hare's Sentence Combining: Improving Student Writ-
ing without Formal Grammar Instruction (Urbana, 111.: NCTE,
1973) .
5
Early twentieth century texts include G. C. Lee's
Principles of Public Speaking (1899), A. E. Phillips' Ef
fective Speaking (1980) and James A. Winans1 Speechmakxng
(1915). Winans' book in particular was based on Jamesian
psychology and went back to Aristotle and the past, grounded
on tradition and logic. Later texts may be represented by
"handbook" types such as Strunk and White's Elements of
Style, which sets forth a list of do's and don'ts for
writers, the aforementioned Warriner's English Grammar and
Composition. Much earlier, McGuffy's Reader held sway.
^W. Ross Winterowd, in an overview of the series, part
of the proposal for The Skills of Language and Composition,
to be published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. A simi
lar statement may be found in Winterowd's Contemporary
Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1975).
201
7 .
Richard E. Young, Alton L. Becker, Kenneth L. Pike,
Rhetoric: Discovery and Change (New York: Harcourt, Brace
and World, Inc., 1970).
8
From the proposal for Winterowd and Murray, The
Skills of Language and Composition.
^Ibid.
■^See Mellon, Transformational Sentence Combining and
O'Hare, Sentence Combining.
12
This point is first established in a letter from
Ross Winterowd to Paul McCluskey, Director of the Center
for Special Studies and the series' project director, dated
May 31, 1976. Winterowd explains Krashen's work in second
language learning and what implications for the series his
findings have. Acknowledging that Krashen's work concerns
second language learning in the literal sense, Winterowd
nevertheless concludes that "he and I are both convinced
that the principles he develops are applicable also to the
learning of writing." The relationship between second
language learning and learning strategies of both left and
right hemisphere dominated students is explained in some
detail.
13 .
An example of such guidelines is available in Guxde-
lines for Evaluation of Instructional Materials with Re
spect to Social Content, prepared,by the Curriculum Frame-
works and Instructional Materials Selection Unit (Sacra
mento: State Department of Education, 1978).
14
From notes taken at an editorial conference and
meeting with regional sales managers in Chicago, June 20,
21, 1976.
15
From a letter to the authors from Paul McCluskey,
July 12, 1976.
16
This situation may change as the series develops,
however, in light of recent decisions such as the one
handed down by U.S. District Judge Charles Joiner. He
ruled in July 1979 in Michigan that Ann Arbor schools must
recognize "Black English" as a separate language and must
educate children who speak Black English without treating
them as inferior. Specifically, the plaintiffs in the law
suit asked that teachers recognize reading and speaking as
202
separate functions and that children can be taught to read
without first changing their speech patterns.
17
An excellent discussion of how grammar and/or sen
tence combining can be used in courses for basic writing
and ESL students is in the Spring/Summer 1977 edition of
Basic Writing: Uses of Grammar (New York: City University
of New York, Instructional Resource Center, 1977). See
especially Sarah D'Eloia, "The Uses— and Limits— of Gram
mar" and David M. Davidson, "Sentence Combining in an ESL
Writing Program" in that issue.
18
In a memorandum to Paul McCluskey from Jean Showal-
ter, Division of Verifiability and Testing (Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich), August 11, 197 7. The memorandum includes
written reports from the teachers involved in the field
test of sentence combining materials at the ninth grade
level in the Huntington Beach Unified High School District.
19
From a draft copy of the Summary of Field Test
Studies, by Betty Nanz, Managing Editor, Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, San Francisco Center for the Study of Instruc
tion, June 5, 197 9. The report includes handwritten evalu
ations from students included in the field testing of four-
chapters on composition.
20
The experiment took place at Chatsworth High School,
Los Angeles Unified School District. Three teachers were
involved: two teachers used the Blue Book materials during
the course of two semesters; one teacher supplemented these
materials with O'Hare's Sentencecraft and selections from
Strong's Sentence Combining: A Composing Book; one teacher
worked with some of the Blue Book lessons but created most
of her own material, designed on the model of the Blue Book.
21
The principal studies are Mellon, Transformational
Sentence Combining and O'Hare, Sentence Combining. Further
recent documentation is in the Report on Project Literacy:
A Pilot Program for the Testing"and Remediation of Writing
Skills, prepared for the Trustees and Administration of
Huntington Beach Union High School District, September 1,
1977. See also W. E. Combs, "Further Effects and Implica
tions of Sentence-Combining Exercises for the Secondary
Language Arts Curriculum" (Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Minnesota, 1975); K. W. Hunt and R. C. O'Donnell, An
Elementary School Curriculum to Develop Better Writing
Skills, Project No. 8-0903 (Tallahassee, Florida: U.'S.
Office of Education, 1970); Max Morenberg, Donald Daiker,
and Andrew Kerek, "Sentence Combining at the College Level:
An Experimental Study," Research in the Training of English
3 (1978):245-256; E. L. Pedersen, "Improving Syntactic and
203
Semantic Fluency in the Writing of Language Arts Students
through Extended Practice in Sentence-Combining" (Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1977).
22
A letter from Paul McCluskey to both authors May 24,
1978, cites agreed upon names of persons to act as review
ers and consultants. Conference notes taken May 31, 1979,
further specifies reviewers of the sentence combining
materials.
23
New Ways in English (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Pren-
tice-Hall, 196 8) anticipated current trends in English
texts by including sentence combining and expansion exer
cises and by incorporating chapters on the social aspects
of language use. Contemporary English (Morristown, N.J.:
Silver Burdett Co., 1976) explores cultural plurality,
sentence combining, and practical writing in its series.
This series notably talks about purpose, audience, and tone
in its chapters on composing. Modern English in Action
(Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath & Co., 1978) says in its
teacher's edition that the series will make use of the
"new" grammars, specifically structural linguistics and
transformational generative grammar. It includes a kind of
sentence combining in a chapter called "Building Sentences.'
Building English Skills (Evanston, 111.: McDougal, Littell,
197 7) explores sentence combining in a very limited fashion.
24
Letter from W. Ross Winterowd to Paul McCluskey,
May 31, 1976.
25
Conference notes taken June 20, 1976 xn Chxcago.
2 6
From notes taken during an editorial conference in
Los Angeles, September 7, 1976.
2 8
J. Britton, T. Burgess, N. Martin, A. McLeod, and
H. Rosen, The Development of Writing Abilities (11-18)
(London: Macmillan Education, 1975).
29
From editorial conference notes taken June 20, 1976,
in Chicago.
^From editorial conference notes taken June 16, 1979,
in Chicago.
^From editorial conference notes taken January 24,
1977 and September 28, 1977.
32
Letter to the authors from Paul McCluskey, May 24,
1978.
204
33
From editorial conference notes taken June 16, 197 9,
in Chicago.
34
From editorial conference notes taken September 7 08,
1976 and May 11, 1976.
35
Letter to Patricia Murray from Paul McCluskey,
September 20, 1978.
3 6
Letter from Ross Winterowd to Paul McCluskey,
August 18, 1975.
37
Letter from Paul McCluskey to the authors, July 14,
1975.
38
From editorial conference notes taken December 18,
197 8, in Chicago.
205
CHAPTER IV
THE PROBLEM OF VALIDATION
Introduction
Validating a composition program such as the one pro
posed in this paper must be considered an on-going process
and, therefore, necessarily incomplete. It is an on-going
process because programs based upon the new model are just
now getting under way, or are still under consideration by
teachers and school districts, or are not yet even known to
them. Composition programs based upon the current-tradi-
tional model, because they have decades of use behind them,
can produce statistical data resulting from standardized
tests employed at the school, district, state, and national
levels, or less formal data resulting from teacher observa
tions and examinations, college placement practices, stu
dent progress at the college or professional school level,
assessments made by teachers of writing at the post-high
school level, professional studies and publications, and
the like. While these and other assessment techniques can
and will be used to measure the results of a composition
program based upon the new model, or some version of it,
limited data are available at the present time.
206
However, three kinds of data are available now to in
dicate the validity of the proposed programs. First, field
test studies of the textbook series discussed in Chapter
III show conclusively that the proposed program is on the
right track, is accepted by teachers of secondary composi
tion students, and will make a considerable contribution to
English education in the next few years; Second,, the pub
lished results of the Huntington Beach Union High School
District's Ninth Grade Writing Program (see Appendices A
and B for a full description) provide both formal and in
formal confirmation of the reliability of a program that
concentrates instructional effort on students' writing per
formance by utilizing the major features of the new model.
Third, some areas of the program have previously been tested
in separate research projects and the results exist in the
published literature of the field. I will examine each in
turn.
Validating a Practical Rhetoric:
Series Field Test Data
The first step in assuring that a textbook series will
be effective and usable is to test the vocabulary and read
ing level of the material intended for particular grade
levels. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich's Division of Verifia
bility and Testing ran a Dale-Chall Readability Formula
Check on manuscript selections from the ninth grade mate
rials , specifically a proposed chapter on exposition and
207
another on creative writing. I will use as my example the
proposed chapter on "Finding Subject Matter" which I (here
after designated "Author B" as in the report) wrote and
which was scrutinized and scored for readability at grade
level. I must, however, add the proposed chapter was orig
inally written for the seventh grade level; the same mate
rial, somewhat revised, now appears in the ninth grade text.
Seven non-consecutive pages were tested, each page
ranging from 98 to 116 Words and from 5 to 12 sentences.
Based upon the Dale List of 3,000 Familiar Words, from 4 to
22 words per sample were deemed "unfamiliar." Such words
were previous, chapters, usefulness, personal, journal,
experiences, practiced, observation, events, sharpen, aware,
topics, consider, problem, clues, information, and chapter.
A few of the words singled out as above grade level were
words which, in context, were meant to be discussed or re
searched by students and were known by Author B to be un
familiar to seventh graders, as in this question concerning
the reading assignment in the lesson:
Did you ask yourself questions, such as "What do the
words 'diminutive,' 'aurum,' 'truncated,' and 'convex'
mean?" Did you look up the words you didn't know in
the dictionary? Could you guess at their meanings
from the way they were used in the sentence?
Here Author B hoped to stimulate students to become inquisi
tive about vocabulary, perhaps to look up infamiliar words
in the dictionary, and especially to consider meanings in
the context of the reading sample. However, diminutive,
208
aurum, truncated, and convex— all clearly unfamiliar words
to most seventh graders— were charged against the manu
script when it was evaluated for readability at grade level.
Average sentence length for the seven samples ranged
from 8 to 23 words per sentence. The Dale score, deter
mined by dividing the number of words not on the Dale List
of 3,000 Familiar Words by 100, ranged from 4 to 22. The
Formula raw score (based on the Klare Table) for the seven
samples ranged from 4.66 to 7.80. As a result, the range
of the selected samples went from a low of 4.7 (a reading
level indicating fourth grade level and below) to a high of
7.8 (a reading level commonly scored by 9th and 10th grad
ers). The average raw score of the seven samples was 6.82
and the average corrected grade level, 7th-8th. In short,
the results showed that these particular samples from the
manuscript were suitable in terms of readability for grades
7 through 9, because, according to the demands of the mar
ket, textbooks must be accessible to readers at grade level
and at least two grade levels below.
The sentence combining materials, conveniently called
the Blue Books because of their covers, were tested by ap
proximately 1,500 students and 30 teachers in schools lo
cated in the Los Angeles area (primarily Huntington Beach,
California), and in Chicago, Boston, New York, and Minnea
polis. Inner city schools, rural schools, and suburban
schools were involved; and their students and teachers in
209
each of these settings were representative of a multi
cultural, multi-ethnic society. Varied socioeconomic back
grounds were represented as well as diverse intellectual
abilities and educational goals. The wide range of stu
dents, teachers, and schools was deliberately chosen to
ensure the applicability of all materials tested. The pub
lisher's Summary of Field Test Studies for The Skills of
Language and Composition, Sentence Combining Materials,
cited these aims or objectives for field testing the mate
rials :
1. To measure students' achievements and interest in
writing for those using the field test materials
as compared with those students using other mate
rials— Warriner's English Grammar and Composition;
Writing: Unit Lessons in Composition (Ginn);
Sentencecraft, Grammar Workbook, Modern Grammar
and Composition (ABC); Writing to be Read, and
Business English for the 70's (Prentice-Hall).
2. To determine the effectiveness of sentence-combin
ing and its carry-over to students' everyday
writing.
3. To help students achieve fluency and variety in
writing.
4. To validate the design/format of the program:
models, exercises all students can do, progression
to more complicated variations, and concluding
with a new problem [sic].l
The Report found these performance results:
In all test schools, the majority of students' writing,
punctuation, grammar, and fluency did improve, as did
their interest in writing. The materials are cer
tainly one contributing factor to his improvement.
The grammar portions of the Sentence-Combining section
are not needed, particularly when the text will have
a grammar section. Too much information confuses
210
students. They need and want to see clearly what is
expected of them and why.2
Directions to students must be precise and concise.
They should take into account any variations which
occur in the exercises.3
Teachers and students alike were enthusiastic about
the follow-up activities presented in the material.
The final product should probably have more such
activities.4
Each exercise must have internal consistency— i.e.,
no variables such as an item not yet taught or an
item of no present concern.5
A thorough Teacher's Manual is important in terms of
introductory activities, suggested methods of presen
tation, sharing of similar problems within the mate*-
rial, follow-up activities, and evaluation.
Aside from comments concerning the need for format revisions
before publication, the Report affirms that observations of
students and teachers using the materials (the Blue Books)
provide insight and perspective concerning other aspects of
the entire composition program put forth in the textbook
series. It specifically says that "valid data concerning
students' achievement can be gathered to confirm the Proof-
Approach Compliance for Learner Verification" and that some
information gleaned from the field testing "is applicable
g
to programs currently being written and planned."
Because the specific comments from teachers involved
in the testing program are valuable to the authors as sug
gestions for revision and serve as documented evidence that
a part of the composition program works effectively, I in
clude a sampling of those remarks. These teachers were
chosen by the publisher's Division of Verifiability and
211
Testing for their experience and expertise in teaching com
position, for their willingness to work with new materials,
and for their integrity and honesty in assessing both stu
dent progress and the validity of the materials.
1. My students' punctuation skills have improved
dramatically. The book treats punctuation skills
as being incidental to syntactic manipulation.
My students were very receptive to this approach.
2. The entire book is excellent for foreign students
to use to acclimate themselves to English usuage
[sic]. It is difficult for them, but points up
many "verb problems" that they experience.
3. I especially like the Winterowd-Murray idea of
having students write an entire sentence correctly
rather than merely correcting the one or two words
within that sentence. This emphasis on the whole
thought is important. Many authors, such as the
famous Warriner, neglect to do this important step.
4. In summary the [continuation high school] students
had positive comments about the Field Study Mate
rials. From their remarks, I understand they like
the book for several reasons. They were able to
do the exercises with little or no extra explana
tion from the teacher. They could see that one
can make choices in writing sentences; it is not
a question of "right" or "wrong" in writing,
merely choice. They could write and hear modes
of expression new to them, ones they could use.
5. The book is excellent! It lends itself to group
or individualized study, and the sentence examples
are refreshingly updated. The conversational
tone— and the amount and, usually, the placement
of comments— allow the student to understand why
and how certain sentence patterns are used in the
English language. I truly believe the book has
helped my low ability students to create a variety
of sentence forms within their own work.
6. The book . . . introduced a variety of sentence
structures immediately to the students without
the "bogging down" of most English texts in
"lingo" and abstract rules, memorization. The
students were constantly writing, not doing ab
stract exercises, but writing styles and learning
212
fluent ways to add modification to their own
sentences. The book often gave me a chance to
introduce normally confusing grammatical rules
through simple explanation: the comma was
learned through learning to add clauses to sen
tences; who/whom choices were learned through
learning how to embed ideas in phrases and add
them to base sentences; the use of the dash,
parentheses and colon was introduced as just
another way of embedding ideas for fluency;
run-ons and fragments were easily taught when
one teaches as the book suggests: the first
goal is to have the student master the concept
of the base sentence and then all other phrases
are modifications of that base.
7. The signals helped students to progress to the
more difficult sentences in which they had the
freedom to make combinations using their own
connectives. Some sentence combining books do
not provide this aid to the student who is
beginning sentence combining.
More negative responses have since proved valuable in re
vising materials:
8. Sentence combining is the "now" thing that is
going to solve all writing problems. I was told
that eariler [sic] chapters do cover this subject
matter. I would question whether sentence com
bining should come before or after the parts of
speech instruction.
9. I would' like' to'see composition assignments or
suggestions included with the exercises. I found
a useful approach the assigning of one-word, ten
minute compositions at the beginning of the hour.
These writing exercises . . . forced the students
to use those basic rules of capitalization re
garding nouns, etc.
10. I recommend revision of vocabulary used in the
book . . . Words like "gay" and "bosom" seem
very funny to some adolescents and bring in a
distracting note. Mythological allusions,
peculiar names, less ordinary vocabulary choices
when a commoner word would serve as well— these
cause irritating interruptions necessitating
explanations from the teacher. This is fine,
even educational, but obstructive as far as the
point of the model is concerned.
213
Perhaps the most telling support for the sentence-
combining program comes from the Huntington Beach Union
High School District's Ninth Grade Writing Program Report
8
No. 6. The Report in general states that "the ninth grade
writing program has been highly beneficial to students. The
results of this program would indicate that these students
have demonstrated increased proficiency in writing perform
ance which, if nurtured, should lead them to successful
9
completion of the required graduation writing proficiency."
That part of the ninth grade program called Project Liter
acy, a Pilot Program for the ..Testing and Remediation of
Writing Skills, utilized the Blue Book materials extensively
in a writing laboratory setting. The Report on Project
Literacy, prepared by the directors, had this to say about
the effectiveness of sentence combining as a tool for in
creasing syntactic fluency in the writing of young students:
The "Blue Book" field study materials from the forth
coming The Skills of Language and Composition by
W. Ross Winterowd and Patricia Murray was made avail
able to the project staff by Harcourt, Brace, Jovano
vich. As a program in sentence-combining, this tool
proved invaluable both in terms of its primary objec
tive (increasing syntactic fluency . . .) as well as
in an editing dividend gained by students as a whole
and identified by the majority of project teachers.
With disciplined and regular assignment in the "Blue
Book," the average ninth grader in the project not
only became more syntactically fluent by practicing
sentence combining, he or she also overcame problems
of editing such as punctuation, sentence fragments,
reference, and the like.
A second set of materials from the textbook series,
The Skills of Language and Composition, included four
214
chapters on expository writing, a section from Part I, The
Writing Workshop ( ’ see Chapter III of this paper for spe
cific content). The chapters tested were "Writing to In
form: Exposition," "Gathering Information for Writing,"
"Writing the Paragraph," and "Writing the Short Expository
Paper." These chapters cover the area of school writing
most teachers emphasize, taking the student from finding a
subject, determining a topic, finding something to say about
the subject and topic, organizing materials, developing
paragraphs, and relating paragraphs so as to form a cohe
sive whole short piece of exposition. Included are expla
nations and models, exercised to help students understand
the process of writing exposition, practice in prewriting
and rewriting, and cross-references to related exercises in
editing skills. These four chapters could be considered a
book-within-a-book or a core course within the entire pro
gram. Although the authors hope teachers will not exclude
the other materials in the series that will improve stu
dents' understanding of and appreciation for the total com
position process, it can be safely predicted that some
teachers will place primary emphasis on these four chapters
— thus, the importance of testing their effectiveness be
fore publication.
The Summary of Field Test Studies for the expository
writing section described above (for grade 9) involved three
teachers at one school in the Southeast United States.
215
Four classes with a total of 9 9 students used the materials
and reported upon them. These four chapters were tested in
a school with an approximately equal number of black and
white students, their socioeconomic range varying from low
to middle class. The format of the four chapters was
tested; that format offers first an explanation of particu
lar skills of writing such as paragraph structuring, then
suggested exercises that enable students to practice the
skills under consideration. The format is intended to
facilitate skill-acquisition and performance for expository
writing. Student performance results are encouraging and
point to the validity of the program as a whole:
All of the teachers responded positively to the plan
of the textbook and to the structure of the lessons
of the composition section. The teachers found the
explanations generally clear and the examples gen
erally good. The students' writing showed an improve
ment. The teachers found the material appropriate
for the average and above average student.
The teachers responded especially favorably to the
lessons on methods of paragraph development and
writing paragraphs. They also responded positively
to the questioning system (who, what, when, where,
why). The idea for topic restriction illustration
was thought to be good. The teachers liked the or
ganization of the writing composition section which
includes moving from the topic to the thesis. The
directions were found to be clear and the vocabulary
was appropriate.
The students liked the content of the writing models
and found them to contain topics of particular in
terest to them.il
The negative results only contributed to subsequent
revision by the authors and editors for the better. Stu
dents found the model of writing concerning the dictionary
216
too difficult and boring; it has been replaced. In the
chapter on invention, students did not fully understand the
tagmemic model and it will be simplified before publication.
Students did not clearly understand what a "restriction" is
in the topic-restriction model for developing a paragraph;
the material has been rewritten to expand the explanations,
and more examples have been added. The last problem cited
in the report is indicative of the kind encountered when a
newer, less familiar approach is offered teachers and stu
dents in a composition program:
When the directions suggested that students exchange
papers for correcting, some students were uncomfort
able with having their papers read by other students.
The directions were moved to the Teacher's Edition
so that the teacher may use his or her judgment as
to whether or not the students should exchange
papers.12
Where the newer model for composition emphasizes process
and encourages experimentation and openness in a supportive
and comfortable workshop setting, it will inevitably find
some resistance from teachers and students (in my experience
as a classroom teacher and supervisor, the resistance comes
primarily from teachers who feel more comfortable in an
authoritarian position). Since, in the field test, the
materials on expository writing were taken out of the con
text of the entire program, students may not have had the
experience of first writing freely, without fear of repri
mand or correction, or of learning how to develop confidence
in their own resources for writing. Subsequent field tests
217
of the entire Writing Workshop which includes chapters on
writing for and about oneself (journal writing, autobiog
raphy, writing about personal experience) may produce dif
ferent, more positive, results than the one cited above.
Comments from both students and teachers involved in
using and reviewing the expository writing chapters verify
the strong points of the materials as they reflect the new
model for composition:
Student responses (unedited)
1. I liked it, because it has a way of seeping into
some-ones mind. It was like expressing yourself
in school work. . . .
2. I think the book was good because it gave you a
good idea of what you had to write about. I was
uptodate with the things that was happing. It
gave you more topics to choose from and the kind
of topics you liked. That is why I liked it.
3. The book was very good and it explain every thing.
It gave a lot of Subjects to choose & a lot of
Topics. It showed a lot of good examples. And
it showed how to write a Thesis. This book is
well organized than others we had to work with.
4. Some of the thing I like about the book were that
it explained what you were suppose to do in more
details then the other books. I also like writing
recipes. The best thing that I liked was the
different ways the showed you to start and to
write a paragraph.
5. What I really liked about the composition note
book was that it taught me a whole lot of differ
ent things that I didn't know before; Such as
brainstorming, expository, indenting paragraphs,
etc. I also like the way it was written, and the
different types of examples.
Teacher responses (reviewers read Chapters 1 through 9)
1. Of all the many strong points of the text, perhaps
218
its greatest strength lies in the organization.
It progresses very systematically from personal
writing activities for which students can rely
heavily on their own backgrounds of experience
to topics which are less familiar and for which
students must do more extensive pre-writing
gathering and organizing of information. . . .
The distinction between revision and proofreading
is another truly strong feature of the text.
(I suspect it may even convince some teachers
that there is a difference.)
2. The letter writing activities are good and timely,
especially as they relate to competency assess
ment by my district. We are asking students to
write a letter of request and fill in an appli
cation blank.
3. Parts of it I found very good and useful, espe
cially where the emphasis is on journal writing,
personal expression and the development of ideas
in coherent and unified ways. Other parts
troubled me, e.g., the section on business let
ters, because they seemed superfluous to the
interests and needs of the age group you are
aiming at and because they often reminded me
of the exercise texts in common use over the
years.13
Validating a Program: The Huntington Beach
Union High School District Data
Since the 1976-77 school year, the Huntington Beach
Union High School District has provided a special writing
program for all ninth grade students. Although intended
for all ninth graders, the program has focused upon a tar
get group of students who needed remediation and special
help in improving their writing abilities. Students are
tested at the beginning and the end of the school year
through a raw writing sample. These samples are read and
scored according to a rubric by teachers trained in holistic
219
scoring, and the results are published by the school dis
trict in order to determine the effectiveness of individual
schools' writing programs and the programs of students in
those schools.
The Huntington Beach Union High School District writ
ing program reflects the work done by district teachers
involved in a series of educational training seminars con
ducted by Dr. W. Ross Winterowd and Dr. Dorothy Augustine.
The seminars introduced teachers of composition to rhetori
cal theory and to pedagogical methods and procedures de
signed to implement theory. The most significant ideas
forwarded in these seminars, and which provide the founda
tion for the district's writing program, coincide with the
basic tenets of a modern model for composition:
1. The approach to instruction in writing divides
assignments and activities in terms of writing
workshop and writing laboratory objectives. In
the workshop, emphasis is placed upon developing
ideas, gaining syntactic fluency in order to
facilitate expression of those ideas, and master
ing the basic forms or modes of writing. Workshops
are conducted in the classroom by teachers on a
regular weekly basis and consist of students read
ing, discussing, writing, evaluating papers, and
rewriting. Students write and "publish" their
220
papers in terms of reading them to peers or the
teacher and receiving criticism and further ideas
for change or improvement in their writing. The
writing workshop becomes the students' forum for
sharing and generating ideas about writing, prac
ticing different forms of writing, acquiring the
skills of criticism and evaluation, and revising.
The workshop approach emphasizes writing as a pro
cess; it teaches students ways by which they can
effectively convey meaning through a variety of
forms to audiences of readers. Writing is recog
nized as a skill that can be practiced, but it is
also recognized as an evolutionary process that
stems from the writer's need to communicate ideas
and feelings and proceeds according to the writer's
growing maturity and awareness of self and the
world. Thus, writing is encouraged and guided,
not subjected to drill.
2. The writing laboratory, on the other hand, consists
of prescribed exercises tailored to each student
who needs help in acquiring the skills of Edited
Standard English. Because the laboratory is sepa
rated from the workshop either by physical sur
roundings or by division of class time, students
are shown the dual nature of their writing tasks:
to write and to edit. The workshop removes as
221
much as possible the obstacles to the production
of writing— fear of failing, fear of poor grades,
fear of the blank page, lack of syntactic fluency
— while the laboratory aids students in acquiring
the dialect of written English. Those students
who need assistance in making the talking to writ
ing transfer get tutorial help through personal
contact with peer tutors or teachers; programmed
materials, individualized assignments, and other
software can be part of the laboratory equipment.
But focus on acquiring editing skills through drill
and practice separates the laboratory from the
workshop.
3. The view of a writing program as student-centered,
a view that should be obvious from the above dis
cussion, requires teachers to be informed about
rhetorical theories validated by research and prac
tical methods in the classroom, to develop and use
tools and procedures that grow out of these theo
ries, and to adopt a philosophy that will allow
them to implement a student-centered program.
Students in such a program are recognized as com
petent speakers of language who can be taught to
acquire a new written dialect, Edited Standard
English; teachers can tap students' natural compe
tence and direct it toward adequate or better
222
performance. The teacher's role is to guide stu
dents and encourage them toward gaining mastery in
their use of language; it is not to straitjacket
them through presciptive drills or insistence upon
rigid form, a practice that only inhibits further
those students for whom writing is difficult. Al
though attitude is hard to measure and judge, its
influence is plainly seen in the way teachers or
ganize courses and select and use materials. Thus,
in-service training for teachers of student-
centered writing courses should produce a core of
informed professionals who will bring to their
students ideas, practices, and approaches firmly
based upon the security and authority that knowl
edge provides.
The writing workshop/writing laboratory concept takes its
form from several sources, one of which is Krashen's theory
14
of the monitor model of second language performance. The
developers of the HBUHSD writing program view learning to
compose as like learning a second language in that two dif
ferent processes go on. According to Krashen, one kind of
second language learning, the acquisition process, takes
place without overt teaching and develops in much the same
way language develops in children learning to talk. Lan
guage acquisition refers to the way linguistic abilities are
internalized naturally, without a conscious focus on lin
223
guistic form. Such acquisition usually takes place in a
rhetorical situation, a scene. The HBUHSD program defines
the writing workshop as the place where composition skills
are acquired— in the classroom scene where interaction
among other language acquirers of "second language-written
English" goes on.
A second kind of process Krashen calls language learn
ing, a conscious process that is developed in formal situa
tions. These situations are characterized by error correc
tion and rule isolation. The result of conscious language
learning is the construction of a monitor which inspects
and alters, regularizes and corrects, the output (an utter
ance or written expression). The monitor can be represented
thus:
learning
i
acquisition------------- ! ---- - output
Students of a second language directly and consciously
learn such rules of grammar as the system of articles, verb
endings, and function words; the monitor allows them to
recognize and make corrections by applying learned rules to
their performance. By analogy, students of written English
can directly and consciously learn the rules pertaining to
editing skills; they can learn to punctuate, capitalize,
correct written errors, select standard usage, and so on.
The HBUHSD program defines the writing laboratory as the
place (or area of focus) in which editing skills can be
224
learned. While this neat division between workshop and
laboratory does not always hold in practice, it does demon
strate one approach to putting theory into practice.
Krashen also points out that there are at least three
types of monitor users. First are the overusers who pay so
much attention to conscious monitoring that they are unable
to produce meaningful output, perhaps unable to start at
all. These students will not be able to grow in ability if
heavy stress on correctness in the writing workshop burdens
them with fear and hesitancy. A second type is the under
user, the student who sees no value to editing skills (or
the skills of monitoring) and who simply turns out one
error-plagued paper after another. This student may be en
couraged to adopt the values of editing through the social
interaction of the workshop, where he will see the effect
of unintelligible written expression upon an audience. He
is encouraged in the laboratory to learn the specific skills
tailored to his individual needs that will permit him to
produce more effective work. The third monitor user, the
optimum user, makes the monitor work for him to regularize
output. He does not, however, let conscious monitoring get
in the way of language production. The optimum user prob
ably does best in the writing workshop where he practices
the editing skills necessary to project his intended mean
ings in language and forms suited to his purpose and audi
ence. In fact, the HBUHSD program considers the workshop
225
the place most likely to produce optimum users of the moni
tor .
Based upon such a theory and pedagogy, Project Liter
acy, a Pilot Program for the Testing and Remediation of
15
Writing Skills, produced demonstrable results. Testing
procedures were the same for this project as for the dis
trict's larger ninth-grade testing and scoring procedures.
The writing classes taught by the Project teachers (those
trained in the educational seminars) showed "more than twice
16
the actual mean gain of the district as a whole," although
there were wide discrepancies in mean.gain from school to
school. These discrepancies are explored in the Project
Report. Teachers in the project responded in writing as a
means of evaluating the program, and I include selected
representative comments below. These responses comment on
both the educational seminars where theory and method were
discussed and the carry-over to the ninth grade program:
1. The program is very important and has proven
itself in the student pre- and post-writing
samples. I can see that my own students have
become more knowledgeable about writing skills
and have become better writers.
2. From the Roman-Wlecky [sic] paper, I read about
the psychological preparation of teaching your
students to think like writers. Actually, when
I first heard this idea in class, I was skeptical
and thought, "My students are not going to be
great writers so why treat them as if they are."
But I must have internalized more than I knew
both from the study and the Roman-Wlecky paper
because before long, I was talking to them as if
writing is the most important .part of their lives.
And they indicate all the time that they think of
226
themselves as writers. The Roman-Wlecky study and
my own composing process paper also helped me to
explore prewriting.
3. I, personally, appreciated the exposure to the
theories underlying various approaches to the
teaching of composition. I believe comparative
studies are most beneficial to anyone who is
trying to decide which methods or combinations
of methods will work most satisfactorily in a
new program . . . Secondly, many of us made use
of the heuristics concept. It was rather in
triguing to see patterned approaches to expand
writing and/or discussion topics.^
Data Available in the Professional Literature
The third source of data which point to the likelihood
of success for a composition program based upon a model such
as the one developed in this paper is immediately available
in published reports and bibliographies of research in com
position and related fields. Extensive annotated bibliog
raphies are provided by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading
and Communication Skills in cooperation with the National
Council of Teachers of English to keep teachers informed
about recent developments in education. Other useful bibli
ographies can be found in reputable textbooks such as Clark
18
and Clark's Psychology and Language and from time to time
in professional journals easily available to teachers such
as College Composition and Communication, The English Jour
nal , and College English, all NCTE publications. My purpose
here is not to attempt a comprehensive review of the re
search available, but to sketch briefly its content and
scope and to indicate possible relationships between the
227
published research and validation of a composition program.
Extensive work has been done in the past two or three
decades on all aspects of child language acquisition, work
which can help us understand the nature of learning a lan
guage and using it, and which can show us the relationship
between early language learning and later use of language
by school children. As an example, children just learning
to talk pick out words to name objects, but also pick out
the roles those objects play in the event being described.
These roles seem to be early versions of the semantic roles
expressed in adult speech, and they have been most thor
oughly studied by Fillmore in his analysis of propositions
19
into case relations. By analyzing case relations, we
have a way of understanding propositions, the basic units
of meaning, and of identifying fundamental roles in human
20
thinking. As noted in an earlier discussion of case re
lations in connection with sentence combining (see Chapter
II), every proposition is made up of a verbal unit and one
or more nouns, each noun playing a distinct role. In these
utterances, the word car plays the same semantic role in
all four, although it is the subject in (a) and the direct
object in the other three:
(a) The car moved.
'(b) The driver moved the car.
(c) The truck moved the car.
(d) The driver moved the car with a truck.
228
The word truck names the instrument with which the car was
moved (instrumental case) in both (c) and (d), but is the
sentence subject in (c) and an object in (d). Thus, each
noun in the proposition fills one of a limited number of
roles (or relations) with respect to its verb. Fillmore
identified the six major case relations as follows:
Agentive case: names the instigator or agent of
the action described by the verb
Instrumental case: stands for an inanimate force or
object involved in the action
described by the verb
Experiencer case: affected by the psychological
state or action named in the verb
Goal case: stands for an object or state that
results from the action or state
named by the verb
Locative case: denotes a location or orientation
for action or state named by the
verb
Objective case: a neutral category for a noun
whose role in the action depends
on the meaning of the verb.
The complexity of utterances, spoken or written, re
lates directly to the number of propositions within them,
which in turn affects a listener/reader's ease in grasping
meaning. Children elaborate the propositional content of
their utterances by adding function words and word endings,
then by combining propositions into a single utterance by
simply stringing them together, incorporating one into an
other, or combining the two operations. Soon after babies
begin to speak one-word utterances, they begin to combine
229
single word utterances into two-word utterances. Studies
show that children find their own formulas to express a
relationship between the two words and for choosing the
words to combine (content words, pronouns). In a study by
21
Bowerman, the child Kendall produced two-word utterances
in which several roles are discernible:
Verb and Agentive: Mommy read
Verb and Experiencer: see Kendall (Kendall sees)
Verb and Goal: writing book
Verb and Locative: sit pool
Verb and Objective: shoe off
Agentive and Objective: Kendall book (is reading)
Experiencer and Objective: Papa door
Locative and Objective: there cow
As children mature, their two-word utterances expand to in
corporate function words and strings of propositions. Want
candy becomes I want some candy and Baby shoe changes to
The baby has a shoe, or That is the baby's shoe. By the
time children are old enough to go to school and are taught
to write, they can capitalize upon the natural acquisition
process by embedding, juxtaposing, expanding, and deleting
within sentences. When a reader or a teacher says to a
student that his or her sentence doesn't make sense, that
sentence can be reordered so that the syntactic relation
ships match the meaning intended by the writer. In the
case of ambiguity in an expression, we can look to grammat
ical rules to account for the ambiguity of surface struc
tures and relate surface form to underlying meaning, as in
this example:
230
(a) I had an argument with the woman standing by
the Coke machine.
If we consider that the woman standing by the Coke
machine results from stripping away the relative
pronoun and deleting a form of the verb be, then
we know that one of these two versions is the intended
meaning of (a):
(b) I had an argument with the woman who is
standing by the Coke machine.
(c) I had an argument with the woman who was
standing by the Coke m a c h i n e .22
When children learn to read, and subsequently learn to
write, we must realize that readers and writers bring to
their tasks knowledge about the world and their lives as
well as natural language competence. Faced with sentences
they have never encountered before, children use all they
know about language and life to make sense of them. Good
man and Greene point out that "reading is a very demanding
activity, requiring the reader to interact with the author
23
to create meaning from the chicken scratches on the page,"
and suggest that children who learn to read easily do so
because "reading is a natural language process requiring
the use of the same human cognitive abilities that are in-
24
volved in speaking and understanding." in order to help
children learn to read (and, by extension, to write, since
readers also become writers who write for a reading audi
ence) , we need to be aware of potential linguistic problem
areas for young readers, understand what knowledge children
bring to the task, and be careful not to overburden them
linguistically in the early stages of learning to read
____________________________________________ 231
and write.
Researchers have found that young children produce
words which are closely associated with gestures that ac
company them— "saying" and "pointing." One conclusion is
that these early word-gesture routines develop gradually
25
into the routines of adult speech acts. As children lis
ten to and talk with adults, they learn the cooperative
principles of conversation and become more and more sophis
ticated in their use of language. In a young child, Daddy?
in the absence of the father, uttered while looking at the
empty doorway, shows the child's conceptual ability to
evoke in the mind representations of things not present to
the immediate sensation. Grasping, tugging on clothes,
looking directly at someone, and gesturing may be consid
ered the direct precursors to speech acts such as asserting,
requesting, and questioning. Then the child combines the
gesture with a word, as in saying Mama accompanied by reach
ing toward an object, signifying the child wants his mother
to give him the object designated. In asserting, the child
may say See ball in the presence of the ball; in requesting,
she may say More milk, pointing toward a glass of milk, in
dicating the desire for mother to give her more milk. In
negating, No more may also be a request if accompanied by a
gesture of refusal, such as pushing the glass of milk away.
Similarly, questions such as Where candy? may count as re
quests in the appropriate context of situation.
232
As children learn to talk to and with others, they
tune into the non-linguistic cues of conversational compe
tence. They learn routines for getting the listener's
attention, keeping that attention, acknowledging the topic,
and so on. Later, through practice with parents primarily
in "conversational lessons," they learn about other cooper
ative principles of conversations such as turn-taking. As
children mature, they elaborate both the structure and the
function of their language. Slobin has suggested that
children acquire some structures before others because of
operating principles they apply to language, then gradually
replace these early principles by more specific strategies
similar to the ones adults rely on as they listen to other
2 6
people talk. For semantic coherence, children look for
systematic modifications in the forms of words, look for
grammatical markers that indicate underlying semantic dis
tinctions clearly and make semantic sense, and learn to
avoid exceptions. At the surface structure level, they pay
attention to the ends of words; pay attention to the order
of words, prefixes, and suffixes; and avoid interruption or
27
rearrangement of linguistic units. Children begin to add
function words to their expressions, acquire the appropri
ate word endings, combine two or more propositions to negate
and question, add relative clauses to modify one idea in a
sentence, and begin to use complements to fill in ideas in
an expression. In addition, they expand their repertoire
233
of speech acts to include assertions, directives (asking
and ordering), commissives (promises), expressives (usually
in the form of please and thank you, taught directly by
parents), and declaratives. As they become more and more
adept at handling language, they learn more indirect ways
to express a speech act, such as in hedging what they as
sert with I think . . . or as in degrees of politeness
(Would you give me . . . ; Please can I have . . . ). Fur
ther, they become more sensitive to what listeners know
about the topic and expand the number of sentence structures
in order to stress either new or old information.
The point of this discussion is simply, but impor
tantly, this: while sensitivity to the nature of speech
acts can be developed at every stage of children's educa
tion, the composition teacher can utilize her knowledge and
students' natural competencies through writing tasks which
explore the relationship of writer, voice, audience, con
text, and the conventions of language. Each of these as
pects of the writing process relates to some element of the
natural language acquisition process. A writing program
can be founded upon an understanding of that process and be
viewed as an extension of it.
Equally extensive study of the structure of language
provides a wealth of data upon which to build writing pro
grams. What has emerged from this study of language is a
general view of language as fundamentally an instrument of
234
communication. Language has structure, which linguists
describe with rules; but language is important to humans
because it is put to use. The nature of direct and indirect
speech acts helps us realize strategies that provide ways
2 8
to express the substance (meaning) of a sentence. in re
questing, for instance, a why-question counts as a request,
for it is a polite way of asking for something. In Why
don't you take out the garbage? the speaker softens the re
quest (or order, if you wish). Implied in such a strategy
are that the speaker wants the hearer to take out the gar
bage; that while there may be reasons why the hearer could
not take out the garbage, he will comply with the request;
that if there is a reason why the hearer cannot comply, the
opportunity is available to refuse (a face-saving device);
and that the speaker intends the hearer to understand the
question as a request. Children learn very early that
teacher questions are teacher requests for compliance, ac
tion, understanding, or verbal response. Why did you use
this word here? is readily translated by the child into You
probably should not use this word here, prompting revision
or rejection of a vocabulary choice. This example of the
use to which a structure is put stresses the point that the
strategies for how we use language are in a sense part of
the principles for human interaction.
For language occurs always in a context. While the
above example relates to a context involving situation in a
235
social setting, we can look at context more narrowly in
29
terms of sentence structure. Griffin, discusses one kind
of reading interference— static— by using this example to
show violation of the principle of relevance in language:
Mary, who wears green and blue polka-dotted sweaters
with orange and purple shoes, applied to the fashion
design school today.
Sir Francis Drake, whom you might remember, became
one of the first to adopt this new fashion.
Hakluyt made one of the most impressive journeys in
the history of the whole world.
The first example offers information in the relative clause
that seems irrelevant to the fact that Mary applied to the
fashion design school— that is, unless the reader takes
that description to be a comment on Mary's poor taste and
thus a poor candidate for fashion design as a career. The
second tosses in unmeaningful comment. The third is stylis?-
tically discordant because of the word whole. All three
examples amount to "static" in the sentences, static which
causes difficulty and perhaps misinterpretation for readers.
The writing teacher can show students through similar anal
ysis of their writing or made-up examples like the ones
above that, while each of the sentences is syntactically
well-made, the meaning relationships among the parts don't
adhere. Thus, in a sentence-expansion or sentence combin
ing exercise, students can be made aware of how structure
and meaning work together to produce readable, meaningful
sentences.
236
The relevance of a sentence combining component in a
writing program has already been discussed in Chapters II
and III. But the point can be made again here that knowing
about the structure of a language helps us understand and
appreciate its complexity and creativity; both are evidenced
in the way language users combine propositions within ex
pressions. Research in programs to develop syntactic flu
ency which enables students to improve upon that ability to
combine propositions with increasing versatility have re
cently provided evidence that supports the inclusion of sen-
30
tence combining exercises in a writing program. A study
of the effects of a sentence combining program at Beaver
College summarized the findings in part by commenting on
the connection between knowing what to say and knowing how
to say it: "... one can conclude that sentence-combining
practice provides . . . something that permits students to
play with syntactic elements in a way that may eventually
help them with the work of embedding the fragments of their
31
own ideas into meaningful combinations" (emphasis mine).
Psycholinguistic investigations of meaning and thought
have led to better understanding of semantics and that
study's relationship to the writing process. In particular,
it is important that students and teachers realize that
meaning is a matter of sharing between writer and reader,
that meaning is determined partly by an intended message
projected by a writer through language, affected by the
237
context in which the message is sent and received, and
partly by the expectations, experience, and knowledge
brought to the interpretation of a message by a reader.
Children learn very early, for instance, that language makes
sense in a context, and they assume there is a reasonable
connection between what is said or written in a situation
and the situation itself. It is this understanding that
teachers of composition can exploit in training writers to
consider how to project intended meaning that will coincide
with the expectations and abilities of a target audience.
Reading theory proves helpful in this area. For exam
ple, readers can interpret writing that is read silently by
extracting meaning (deep structure) directly from the sur
face structure of the written message without decoding into
sound at all and without having to go through steps that
involve decoding from surface structure writing to deep
structure writing, then to surface structure spoken language
32
to deep structure spoken language. What this means to
students and teachers of the written language is that sur
face details, unless so inhibiting that interpretation is
impossible, matter little. Readers grasp meaning directly
from the surface structure of written squiggles on the page.
But it also means that editing skills may be important to a
reader if and when they facilitate his/her ability to de
cipher/understand meaning. And it means that writers can
learn to write for target audiences, varying their approach
238
and diction to suit the occasion— the context— and their
purposes.
We also know that, while there is a regularity of cor
respondence rules for letter-sound relationships, those
regularities are not critically important because readers
use syntactic and semantic cues to such an extent that they
need only minimal graphic cues in most cases of interpre-
33
tation. Again, the research data show the relative un
importance of drill in spelling when compared to what read
ers really do when they read a written message. This per
tains to the separation in the new model for composition of
"workshop" and "laboratory," or "writing/rewriting" and
"editing." It is the workshop where writing takes place
that needs to be emphasized, although editing skills must
be attended to eventually for maximally effective communi
cation in Edited Standard English.
In addition, in recent years several researchers have
presented some evidence that prewriting matters more than
we used to think under the current-traditional model of
composing. Composition teachers can help students under
stand and increase conscious use of certain intellectual
34
processes, according to Lee Odell, which can result m
writing that is more mature, more carefully thought out,
35
less phony and insincere, and thus more persuasive.
Odell's study shows the possibilities of describing the
present intellectual processes operating in a student's
239
writing by analyzing linguistic cues that relate to the
relatively small number of mental activities identified by
3 6
Kenneth Pike. By looking at how a student focuses upon
scene, event, or detail; how that student handles contrast
in order to make distinctions; how that student shows the
similarities between and among things or people or actions
or feelings through classification; how he or she refers to
change, physical context, and sequence; and by identifying
the linguistic cues that relate to each category, we cannot
only determine where a student is intellectually but in
what ways we need to help him or her begin to think in ways
that will improve writing.
Until recently, little had been done in researching
the writing process itself; but now we have some convincing
descriptions of what is involved when one writes and pro
jections of what might be done in the classroom to improve
37
writing abilities. Britton's Schools Council research
study of the writing abilities of 11-18-year-olds has been
cited extensively in this paper, but it must be cited again
here for its contribution to our understanding of what goes
3 8
on in writing and what might go on. The report from
Britton and his colleagues does not present a writing pro
gram to teach, but does describe student writing and how
student writing differs and develops from year to year.
The report discusses the importance of function categories
— transactional, expressive, poetic— in relation to audience
240
categories— self, teacher (in varying relationships), known
wider audience, unknown audience, and others— and in rela
tion to the writer's sense of audience through different
ages and in different courses of study. That Britton's
study found an overall predominance of transactional writ
ing (especially informative writing such as reports and
explanations) aimed at the teacher or examiner as audience
reveals the nature of writing instruction and occasions for
writing associated with the current-traditional paradigm.
An implication of this finding is that expressive writing,
which may at any stage be the kind best suited for tackling
and solving a problem, exploring and discovering one's
ideas and capabilities, and preserving the link between
speech and writing, has not been encouraged and perhaps has
been suppressed, intentionally or not. In fact, the fol
lowing comment indicts a program of classroom instruction
that ignores more than one or two aims of writing, audi
ences for writing, and occasions for writing:
It would appear . . . that the pressures to write at
an analogic level of the informative— and in the main
for an audience of the teacher as examiner— were
great enough both to inhibit early expressive writing
and to prevent any but minimal development into the
more abstract levels of the informative; strong enough
at the same time to cut down drastically in the seventh
year the output of the poetic. . . . we believe an
explanation for this unexpected narrowing of the range
must be sought in the whole curriculum and its objec
tives. The small amount of speculative writing cer
tainly suggests that, for whatever reason, curricular
aims did not include the fostering of writing that
reflectsindependent thinking; rather, attention was
directed towards classificatory writing which reflects
241
information in the form in which both teacher and
textbook traditionally present it.39 (emphasis mine)
The Schools Council "Writing Across the Curriculum"
40
project involved teachers in seeing whether the ideas
underlying the research cited above could be framed into
approaches and programs to be tried out in classrooms. A
brief summary of the results and further findings suggests
that a composition program in line with the newer model
developed herein could benefit students who are asked to
learn to write in a school setting:
1. Pupils bring inhibiting assumptions about writing
to the task and must be deliberately encouraged to
write in the expressive mode in an atmosphere that
supports experimentation. The key problem is to
help students draw upon their experience as talk
ers; thus discussion, sharing ideas orally, asking
and answering questions, and other prewriting ac
tivities will reinforce students' abilities as
talkers and relate that ability to a writing task.
2. Students tend, in a school setting and without
other encouragement or direction, to write in the
pupi1-examiner relationship. Deliberate efforts
to remove any trace of that relationship in the
teacher1s responses to student writing can produce
dramatic results. The need for a variety of means
of evaluating student writing, especially means
other than marking errors and noting flaws, is
242
implied here.
3. Individual teachers and groups of teachers can
develop policies and practices which expand and
develop ideas about writing, talking, thinking,
and learning, organizing their efforts in confer
ences and courses that cut across curriculum
boundaries. In the individual classroom, for in
stance, teachers can ensure that students experi
ence writing in subjects other than the labeled
course; or they can include writing experiences in
courses that have not traditionally called for
compositions, journals, commentaries, or free re
sponses, but which have depended upon the essay
examination as, perhaps, the only writing activity
in the entire course.
Other research, well-documented in professional jour
nals, is mentioned here as further indication of the range
of concerns and topics of discussion. Questions about the
value and context of writing are raised in a report on the
investigations of a study group sponsored by the Research
Committee and Research Foundation of NCTE by Martha L.
41
King. The study group considered the influence of vari
ous contextual factors on writing fundamentals, for they
contribute to a writer's purpose, relationship with an au
dience, and choice of discourse mode. They even influence
whether writing takes place at all. Classroom atmosphere
243
and physical surroundings, types of instructional materials,
teacher attitude, circumstances under which students are
asked to write, social and economic background of teachers
and students— these and other variables affecting the act
of writing need further investigation, certainly our close
attention.
Whether experience and instruction in writing matter—
and to what extent they matter— are documented by Bamberg
in her study of entering Freshmen at the University of
42
California at Los Angeles. She concludes that those stu
dents who showed proficiency in expository writing has had
an opportunity to learn expository writing during high
school. Other factors, such as motivation, aptitude, and
quality of instruction also contributed to these students'
success. But the amount of time spent actually writing
exposition— the opportunity to learn how to write in that
mode— of the kind expected of university students was the
most salient factor in student performance.
Investigators are also looking at instructional models
and textbooks to see how they affect students' learning to
write. One experiment showed that a problem-solving ap
proach that asked students to arrange scrambled strips of
paper that contained sentences from a model paragraph into
a coherent whole produced writing that was judged better in
43
overall quality than students not exposed to the program.
The process involved reordering, manipulating, analyzing,
244
and comparing; it contrasted with the traditional use of
model paragraphs written by some professional author, read
and analyzed by students to determine the author's method
of development, then imitated by student writers in para
graphs of their own— theoretically a demonstration of the
transfer of skills. Still another, the "Story Workshop"
method, "assumes that all forms of writing derive from
image and story, from image and movement of voice . . .
44
organizing the expression of perceptions through time."
The method uses certain basic forms and the sense of audi
ence to lead into "technical, scientific, factual, journal-
45
istic, rhetorical, poetic, and fictional writing."
Research and reports on the effectiveness of particu
lar textbooks or types of textbooks, the effects of social
class or sex or age, the influence of anxiety and apprehen
sion in students as they approach a writing task, experien
tial writing performance, collaborative learning and writ
ing, auto-tutorial approaches, and teacher intervention in
the writing process— these and other topics are available
in journals and textbooks for the practicing classroom
teacher to read and use to best advantage in working out a
comprehensive, theoretically sound composition program that
makes the most of our current understanding of the writing
process.
Remaining Problems
Obviously, programs in composition such as the model
245
outlined in Chapter II, the developing textbook series de
scribed in Chapter III, and the Huntington Beach Union High
School District's Ninth Grade Writing Program discussed in
this chapter, remain to be fully tested and assessed. Pro
grams, however, cannot be judged effective or ineffective
without appropriate, valid instruments of measurement that
show whether or not students improve in their writing over
a period of time. Consequently, several procedures and
measures should be used in order to determine (a) whether
individual students benefit from instruction within a pro
gram, (b) whether specific groups of students show growth
in writing ability in comparison to other groups within a
particular time span, (c) whether groups and individuals
grow in writing ability over a specific time period, and
(d) whether programs, individual teachers, particular peda
gogical approaches, or other factors influencing a school
environment make the most significant differences in the
success or failure of a model program in composition. Such
measurement instruments include holistic scoring of raw
writing samples, primary trait scoring, teacher-made cri
terion referenced tests, observation and conferencing,
standardized norm-referenced tests, self-evaluation and
individualized goal-setting, and peer evaluation.
Measures or measurement schemes used to validate a
program in composition must exhibit at least these charac
teristics:
246
1. They must be fair to student writers by allowing
them to write as well as they can. A writing
sample topic, for example, should be within the
capabilities of a wide range of students and should
encourage a variety of responses so that respon
sible comparisons of accomplishment can result.
2. Measurements should include several samples of
students' writing, taken on several occasions,
based upon different modes and topics, and scored
by more than one reader. The validity of a com
position program is necessarily suspect, for in
stance, if it depends solely upon scores from a
standardized test or upon one section of such a
test that may measure only editing skills or
vocabulary.
3. Measurement plans should take into account the
nature of the composing process, which is an un
tidy, complex, active human endeavor. The process
involves thinking, getting started, making notes
or outlines, aborting first starts, stopping, re
viewing, rehearsing what is to come, scratching
out, revising, and editing. The product, while
that is the instrument read, evaluated, and scored,
must be taken by scorers as raw material resulting
from such an involved process and, especially un
der test conditions with their attendant pressures
247
and anxieties, an unfinished or unpolished product.
4. Validation must include provisions for evaluating
individual parts of a program as well as its en
tirety. For example, the effectiveness of sentence
combining as a means of facilitating syntactic
fluency at different ages may result in dropping
that part of a program, adding to it, focusing
upon a narrower range of syntactic problems, and
so on, depending upon the level of maturity or
cognitive development at a certain age or grade
i , 46
level.
5. Validation of a composition program should be an
on-going effort spanning several years of measure
ment and assessment. While pre- and post-test
writing samples may tell us whether or not students
have benefited from a particular program or ap
proach to writing instruction within one semester
or one year, they may tell us even more from year
to year as students move from one grade or compe
tency level toward the end of their formal school
ing. We might learn, for instance, more about how
maturity affects growth in writing ability; or in
what ways one group of students changes more or
less rapidly than another in writing habits, atti
tude, and growth; or what aspects of the writing
program need to be altered, dropped, or added to,
248
based upon trends that develop year to year; or
how cultural, sociological, and environmental fac
tors in a changing neighborhood or school popula
tion require shifts in plans and approaches for
teaching writing.
Thus, a good deal of research is yet to be done toward
assessing and validating writing programs and teaching tech
niques. This list of the uses of evaluation and research
can stand as a succinct summary of the kinds of research
that will profit the profession of teaching writing:
Writing evaluations have at least these uses:
Evaluation and Research
6. Measuring students' growth as writers over a
specific time period.
7. Determining the effectiveness of a writing
program or a writing teacher.
8. Measuring group differences in writing per
formance in comparison-group research.
9. Analyzing the performance of a writer chosen
for a case study.
10. Describing the writing performance of indi
viduals or groups in developmental studies,
either cross-sectional or longitudinal in
design.
11. Scoring writing in order to study possible
correlates of writing performance.37
An accompanying problem in validating composition pro
grams and approaches concerns teacher education and train
ing. Since teachers are the primary evaluators of students'
growth in writing, their understanding of what is involved
249
in the writing process and how best to nurture it is criti
cal. Teacher-training institutions bear the major respon
sibility for graduating able teachers with a sound theoret
ical and methodological background. Fortunately/ courses
in many colleges and universities for teacher-trainees now
include instruction in linguistics/ reading, rhetoric of
written composition, methods of teaching writing, and tests
and measurements. But it is still too often the case that
student teachers themselves have not practiced writing,
have had only a rudimentary background in how to formulate
effective writing assignments for their students, and know
little or nothing of models of composition other than the
current-traditional model. For experienced teachers, in-
service seminars and workshops or school and district-
supported back-to-school programs are effective means of
up-dating their background knowledge and of encouraging ex
ploration and innovation. A case in point is the seminar
model supported by the Huntington Beach Union High School
District, a model that produced the original core of teach
ers who shaped the ninth grade writing program and Project
Literacy, and that now regenerates itself through teacher-
led in-service seminars and projects that reach an expand
ing audeince of educators. The Los Angeles Unified School
District and others across the country support in-service
training by granting either released time, salary credits,
college credit, money or supplies for use in course devel-
250
opment, or simply some kind of moral support through recog
nition of individual professionalism and accomplishment.
Still more must be done, supported wholeheartedly by
individual schools, districts, regions, and states, in
order to reach the scores of teachers not yet aware of or
touched by ideas current research in the process of writing
provide. Only through a well-educated and thoroughly in
formed staff of teachers and program administrators can any
kind of writing program be effectively and honestly evalu
ated.
251
NOTES
Summary of Field Test Studies for "The Skills of Lan
guage and Composition," by Winterowd and Murray/ Sentence
Combining Materials (Blue Book), prepared by Jean Showalter,
Division of Verifiability and Testing for Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1977. This confidential in-house report and
all other supporting data are on file at Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich Office of Verifiability and Testing, and the
Learner Verifiecation Report will be available to interested
persons on publication of the series.
2
The test included a short review of participle, pro
noun, and verb forms which were preliminary to specific
sentence combining processes. Such material will be cross-
referenced to the grammar section.
3
My original design, which I still believe to be valid,
was to make lessons deliberately cumulative. That is, stu
dents were asked in lesson 5 to learn a new sentence com
bining maneuver but also asked to continue to use the ones
they had learned in lessons 1 through 4. However, in final
publication form, lessons will be kept "pure"; cumulative
review sections will ask students to use all the maneuvers
practiced to that point.
4Completed texts will feature extensive work with
whole discourse sets to take students beyond the single
sentence level into paragraphs and finally short whole dis
courses .
In final form, a variable not yet taught xn the mate
rials will not appear in any lesson. However, an "item of
no present concern" is not only hard to identify but prob
ably impossible to weed out absolutely. It is essential to
keep sentences natural-sounding, colloquial English in
order to convince students they are writing "real" sen
tences, not stilted textbook sentences. Thus it is neces
sary to include sentence combining practice that calls for
multiple embedments of various types.
6From the Summary of Field Test Studies for "The Skills
of Language and Composition," by Winterowd and Murray, Sen-
tence Combining Materials (Blue Book), 1977.
7
These comments are on file with Harcourt Brace Jovan-
ovich's Division of Verifiability and Testing. Names have
been withheld at the publisher's request.
252
—
Huntington Beach Union High School District 1977-7 8
Ninth Grade Writing Program, Research and Evaluation Report
No. 6, Series 1977-78 (.June 26, 1978), prepared by Keith E.
Hartwig, Director, Research and Evaluation.
g
Ibid., p. 9.
^W. Ross Winterowd and Dorothy Augustine, Report on
Project Literacy: A Pilot Program for the Testing and
Remediation of Writing Skills, prepared for the Trustees
and Administration of Huntington Beach Union High School
District, September 1, 1977, p. 9.
11
From the Summary of Field Test Studies for "The
Skills of Language and Composition," by Winterowd and Murray
(Expository Writing Section), Level 9, prepared by Betty
Nanz, Managing Editor, for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1979.
■^Ibid. , p. 3.
13
These comments are on file with Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich's Division of Verifiability and Testing. Names
have been withheld at the publisher's request.
14
Stephen Krashen, "On the Acquisition of Planned Dis
course: Written English as a Second Dialect," a paper
presented at the Claremont Reading Conference, 1978, and
"The Monitor Model of Second Language Performance," a paper
presented at the Sixth Annual California Linguistics Asso
ciation Conference, San Diego, California, May 2, 1976.
15
See Appendix B which gives complete descriptions and
details.
1 f \
Winterowd and Augustine, Report on Project Literacy,
p. 12.
17
See Appendix C of the Report on Project Literacy.
18
Herbert H. Clark and Eve V. Clark, Psychology and
Language: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
19
C. J. Fillmore, "The Case for Case," Universals of
Linguistic Theory, eds. E. Bach and R. T. Harms (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), pp. 1-90.
20
See Clark and Clark's Psychology and Language,
p. 304 ff.
21
Clark and Clark provide the examples of Kendall's
two-word utterances based upon the work in M. Bowerman,
253
Early Syntactic Development; A Cross-Linguistic Study with
Special Reference to Finnish (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1973).
22
See Don Larkin, "Grammar: An Important Component
of Reading," in Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say About
Reading? ed. Roger Shuy (Newark: International Reading
Association, 1977). The example is taken from his discus
sion.
23
Yetta Goodman and Jennifer Greene, "Grammar and
Reading in the Classroom," in Linguistic Theory, ed. Roger
Shuy, p. 20.
24
Ibid., p. 21.
25
See Clark and Clark's Psychology and Language,
p. 314 ff. for a complete discussion of early speech acts.
2 6
D. I. Slobin, "Cognitive Prerequisites for the
Acquisition of Grammar," in Studies of Child Language De
velopment , eds. C.-, A. Ferguson and D. I. Slobin (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), pp. 175-208.
2 7
See Clark and Clark, Psychology and Language,
p. 304 ff. for a complete discussion of this point.
28
The essentxal sources here are J. L. Austin's How to
Do Things with Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1962); John Searle's Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1969) and "Indirect Speech Acts," in
Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts, eds. P. Cole
and J. L. Morgan (New York: Seminar Press, 1975), pp. 59-
82; and H. P. Grice's seminal essay on the cooperative
principle in conversation published in part as "Logic and
Conversation," in Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech
Acts.
29
Peg Griffin, "Reading and Pragmatics: Symbiosis,"
Linguistic Theory: What Can It Tell Us About Reading?,
pp. 12 3-142. The sentence examples are taken from her
article.
^See Warren Combs, "Further Effects of Sentence Com
bining Practice on Writing Ability," Research in the Teach
ing of English, Fall 1976, pp. 137-149; Max Morenberg,
Donald Darker, and Andrew Kerek, "Sentence Combining at the
College Level: An*Experimental Study," Research in the
Teaching of English, October 1978, pp. 245-256; K. W. Hunt,
"Early Blooming and Late Blooming Syntactic Structures,"
in Evaluating Writing: Describing, Measuring, Judging,
254
eds. Charles Cooper and Lee Odell (Urbana: National Coun
cil of Teachers of English, 1977), pp. 91-104; John Mellon,
Transformational Sentence-Combining; A Method for Enhanc
ing the Development of Syntactic Fluency in English Compo
sition, NCTE Research Report, no. 10 (Urbana: National
Council of Teachers of English, 1969); Frank O'Hare, Sen-
tence Combining: Improving Student Writing without Formal
Grammar Instruction, NCTE Research Report, no. 13 (Urbana:
National Council of Teachers of English, 197 3); William
Strong, Sentence Combining: A Composing Book (New York:
Random House, 1973). '
31
Elaine P. Maimon and Barbara F. Nodine, "Measuring
Syntactic Growth: Errors and Expectations in Sentence-
Combining Practice with College Freshmen," Research in the
Teaching of English, October 1978,p. 243.
32
This point is thoroughly discussed in Frank Smith,
"Decoding: The Great Fallacy," in his collection of essays,
Psycholinguistics and Reading, ed. Frank Smith (New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973), pp. 70-83.
33
Smith, Psycholinguistics and Reading, pp. 26, 48,
180 ff.
34 .
Lee Odell, "Measuring Changes m Intellectual Pro
cesses as One Dimension of Growth in Writing," in Evaluating
Writing, p. 107.
35
Odell cites the following references for his claim:
D. G. Rohman and A. O. Wlecke, Pre-writing: The Construc
tion and Application of Models to Concept Formation in
Writing, Cooperative Research Project, no. 217 4 (Michigan
State University: Office of Education , U.S. Department of
Health, Education and Welfare, 1964); R. E. Young and F. M.
Koen, The Tagmemic Discovery Procedure: An Evaluation of
Its Uses in the Teaching of Rhetoric, National.Endowment
for the Humanities Grant no. EO 3238-71-116 (Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan, 1973); and Lee Odell, "Measuring
the Effect of Instruction on Pre-writing," Research in the
Teaching of English 8 (1974):228-240.
n /*
See K. L. Pike, "A Linguistic Contribution to Compo
sition," College Composition and Communication 15 (1964):
82-88; also R. E. Young, A. L. Becker, and K. L. Pike,
Rhetoric: Discovery and Change (New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc., 1970).
37
Janet Emig's- The Composing Process of Twelfth Grad-
ers (Urbana: National Council.of.Teachers of English,
1971) is the outstanding exception.
255
38
James Britton, et al., The Development of Writing
Abilities (11-18) (London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1975).
39Ibid., p. 197.
40
Ibid., see especially p. 199.
41
Martha L. King, "Research in Composition: A Need
for Theory," Research in the Teaching of Enqlish, October
1978, pp. 193-202.
42
Betty Bamberg, "Composition Instruction Does Make a
Difference: A Comparison of the High School Preparation of
College Freshmen in Regular and Remedial English Classes."
Research in the Teaching of English, February 197 8, pp. 47-
59.
43
Peter M. Schiff, "Problem Solving and the Composi
tion Model: Reorganization, Manipulation, Analysis," Re
search in the Teaching of English, October 197 8, p. 207.
44
John Schultz, "Story Workshop: Writing from Start
to Finish," Research on Composing: Points of Departure,
eds. Charles R. Cooper andLee Odell (Urbana: National
Council of Teachers of English, 1978), p. 151.
45Ibid., p. 152.
46
See K. W. Hunt, "Early Blooming and Late Blooming
Syntactic Structures," in Evaluating Writing: Describing,
Measuring, Judging; and John Mellon, "Issues in the Theory
and Practxce of Sentence Combining: A Twenty-Year Perspec
tive," in Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing,
eds. D. Daiker, A. Kerek, and M. Morenberg (Akron: L & S
Books, 1979).
47
Cooper and Odells, eds., Evaluating Writing, p. ix.
256
257
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Austin, J. L. How To Do Things with Words. Edited by
J. 0. Urrason. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.
Adams, James L. Conceptual Blockbusting: A Pleasurable
Guide to Better Problem Solving. New York: W. W. Nor
ton & Company, 1974.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Reverie. New York:
The Orion Press, 1969.
Bacon, Francis. The Advancement of Learning, ed. William
Armstrong (London: Athlone Press, 1975).
Bamberg, Betty. "Composition Instruction Does Make a Dif
ference: A Comparison of the High School Preparation
of College Freshmen in Regular and Remedial English
Classes." Research in the Teaching of English,
February 1978, pp. 47-59.
Black, Edwin. "The Second Persona." The Quarterly Journal
of Speech 56 (April 1970):109-119.
Black, Max. Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and
Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1962.
Bleich, David. Readings and Feelings: An Introduction to
Subjective Criticism. Urbana: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1975.
Bogen, J. E. "Some Educational Implications of Hemispheric
Specialization." In The Human Brain. Edited by
M. C. Wittrock, et al. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1977.
Booth, Wayne C. Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974.
________ . The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: The Univer
sity of Chicago Press, 1961.
. "The Rhetorical Stance." College Composition
and Communication 14 (1963):139-145. Reprinted in
; Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with
258
Readings, pp. 71-79. Edited by W. Ross Winterowd.
New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1975.
Britton, James; Burgess, Tony? Martin, Nancy; McLeod, Alex;
and Rosen, Harold. The Development of Writing Abili
ties (11-18). London; Macmillan Education Ltd., 19 75.
Bruner, Jerome. On Knowing; Essays for the Left Hand.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969.
Bryant, Donald C. "Rhetoric: Its Functions and Its Scope."
Quarterly Journal of Speech 39 (December 1953):401-424.
Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives. Berkeley: Univer
sity of California Press, 1950.
Campbell, George. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Edited by
Vincent Bevilacqua and Richard Murphy. Landmarks in
Rhetoric and Public Address Series. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1963.
Cazden, Courtney. Child Language and Education. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972.
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of a Thory of Syntax. Cambridge:
M.I.T. Press, 1965.
Christensen, Bonniejean. The Christensen Method: Text and
Workbook. New York: Harper and Row, 197 9.
Christensen, Francis. "A Generative Rhetoric of the Para
graph." College Composition and Communication 16
(October 1965):144-156.
________ . "A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence." Col-
lege Composition and Communication 14 (196 3):155-161.
Reprinted in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual
Background with Readings’ ! Edited by W. Ross Winterowd.
New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1975.
Clark, Herbert H., and Clark, Eve V. Psychology and Lan
guage: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. New
York': Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1977.
Contemporary Composition: A Course Outline for Grade 10 or
11. Los Angeles: Instructional Planning Division of
the Los Angeles Unified School District, 1976.
Coombs, Warren. "Further Effects of Sentence Combining
Practice on Writing Ability." Research in the Teach
ing of English, Fall 1976, pp. 137-149.
259
Cooper, Charles, and Odell, Lee, eds. Evaluating Writing:
Describing, Measuring, Judging. Urbana: National
Council of Teachers of English, 1977.
Cooper, Charles, and Odell, Lee, eds. Research on Compos
ing: Points of Departure. Urbana: National Council
of Teachers of English, 1978.
Corder, Jim W. Contemporary Writing. Glenview: Scott,
Foresman Co., 1979.
Crews, Frederick. The Random House Handbook. New York:
Random House, Inc., 1977.
Daiker, Donald; Kerek, Andrew; and Morenberg, Max, eds.
Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing.
Akron: L & S Books, 19 79.
D'Angelo, Frank. "Modes of Discourse." In Teaching Compo
sition: 10 Bibliographical Essays. Edited by Gary
Tate. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press,
1976.
Davidson, David M. "Sentence Combining in an ESL Writing
Program." Basic Writing: Uses of Grammar. New York:
City University of New York, instructional Resource
Center, Spring/Summer, 1977.
D'Eloia, Sarah. "The Uses— and Limits— of Grammar." Basic
Writing: Uses of Grammar. New York: City University
of New York, instructional Resource Center, Spring/
Summer 1977.
Elley, W.; Barham, J.; Lamb, H.; and Wylie, M. "The Role
of Grammar in a Secondary School English Curriculum."
Research in the Teaching of English 10 (1976):5-21.
Emig, Janet. The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders.
Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1971.
English Language Framework for California Public Schools,
K-12. Sacramento: California State Department of
Education, 1976.
Fillmore, Charles J. "Toward a Modern Theory of Case." In
Modern Studies in English: Readings in Transforma
tional Grammar. Edited by David Reibel and Sanford
Schane. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1969.
Fish, Stanley E. "Normal Circumstances, Literal Language,
Direct Speech Acts, the Ordinary, the Everyday, the
Obvious, What Goes without Question, and Other Special
260
Cases." Critical Inquiry 4 (Summer 1978):625-644.
Fisher, Walter R. "A Motive View of Communication." Quar-
terly Journal of Speech 56 (April 1970).
Grice, H. P. "Logic and Conversation." Syntax and Seman
tics . Vol. 3: Speech Acts, pp. 41-58. Edited by
P. Cole and J. L. Morgan. New York: Seminar Press,
1975. .
Griffin, Peg. "Reading and Pragmatics: Symbiosis." In
Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say About Reading?
Edited by Roger Shuy. Newark: International Reading
Association, 1977.
Goodman, Kenneth. "Analysis of Oral Reading Miscues." In
Psycholinguistics and Reading. Edited by Frank Smith.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
Goodman, Yetta, and Greene, Jennifer. "Grammar and Reading
in the Classroom." In Linguistic Theory: What Can It
Say About Reading? Edited by Roger Shuy. Newark:
International Reading Association, 1977.
Hake, Rosemary, and Williams, Joseph. "Sentence Combining:
Not Can, or How, but When." In Sentence Combining and
the Teaching of Writing. Edited by Donald Daiker,
Andrew Kerek, and Max Morenberg. Akron: L & S Books,
1979.
Hirsch, E. D., Jr. The Philosophy of Composition. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Holland, Norman. The Dynamics of Literary Response. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
Horvath, Barbara. "Sociolinguistics and Reading." In
Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say About Reading?
Edited by Roger Shuy. Newark: International Reading
Association, 19 77.
Hunt, Kellogg W. Differences in Grammatical Structures
Written at Three Grade Levels. Cooperative Research
Project, No. 1998. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Office
of Education, 1964.
"Early Blooming and Late Blooming Syntactic
Structures." In Evaluating Writing: Describing,
Measuring, Judging. Edited by Charles Cooper and Lee
Odell. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1977.
261
Hunt, Kellogg W., and O'Donnell, Roy C. An Elementary
School Curriculum to Develop Better Writing Skills.
U.S. Office of Education Project No. 8-0903. Talla
hassee, Fla.: U.S. Office of Education, 1964.
Iser, Wolfgang. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic
Response. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1978.
Jakobson, Roman. "Concluding Statement: Linguistics and
Poetics," In Style in Language, pp. 350-377. Edited
by Thomas A. Sebeok. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press,
1960.
Judy, Stephen. Explorations in the Teaching of Secondary
English. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 19 75.
Kimura, D. "The Asymmetry of the Human Brain." Scientific
American 228 (1973):70-78.
King, Martha L. "Research in Composition: A Need for
Theory." Research in the Teaching of English, Octo
ber 1978, pp. 193-202.
Kinneavy, James L. Theory of Discourse. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971.
Krashen, Stephen. "The Monitor Model of Second Language
Performance." Paper presented at the Sixth Annual
California Linguistics Association Conference, San
Diego, California, May 2, 1976.
________ . "On the Acquisition of Planned Discourse: Writ
ten English as a Second Dialect." Paper presented at
Claremont Reading Conference, 1978.
Kuhn, Thomas S. Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
Larkin, Don. "Grammar: An Important Component of Reading."
In Linguistic Theory: What Can It Say About Reading?
Edited by Roger Shuy. Newark: International Reading
Association, 1977.
Larson, Richard L. "Discovery Through Questioning: A Plan
for Teaching Rhetorical Invention." College English,
November 1968, pp. 126-134. Reprinted m Contemporary
Rhetoric: A Conceptual Backgorund with Readings,
pp. 145-154. Edited by W. Ross Winterowd. NewYork:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,-Ind., 1975.
262
Larson, Richard L. "Structure and Form in Non-Fiction
Prose." In Teaching Composition: 10 Bibliographical
Essays. Edited by Gary Tate. Fort Worth: Texas
Christian University Press, 1976.
Lauer, Janice. "Heuristics and Composition." College
Composition and Communication, December 19 70, pp. 39 6-
404. Reprinted in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Concep
tual Background with Readings, pp. 79-90. Edited by
W. Ross Winterowd. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovano
vich, Inc., 19 75.
Maimon, Elaine P., and Nodine, Barbara F. "Measuring Syn
tactic Growth: Errors and Expectations in Sentence-
Combining Practice with College Freshmen." Research
in the Teaching of English, October 19 78.
Mellon, John. "Issues in the Theory and Practice of Sen
tence Combining: A Twenty-Year Perspective." In
Sentence Combining and the Teaching of Writing.
Editedby Donald Daiker, Andrew Kerek, and Max Moren-
berg. Akron: L & S Books, 1979.
________ . Transformational Sentence-Combining: A Method
for Enhancing the Development of Syntactic Fluency in
English Composition^ NCTE Research -Report No. 15".
Urbana: National Council of Teachers of English, 1969.
Miller, G. A. "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus
Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing In
formation." Psychological Review 63 (1956):81-87.
Moffett, James. Teaching the Universe of Discourse.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 196 8.
Morenberg, Max; Daiker, Donald; and Kerek, Andrew. "Sen
tence Combining at the College Level: An Experimental
Study." Research in the Teaching of English 3 (1978):
245-256.
Nebes, R. D. "Man's So-Called Minor Hemisphere." In The
Human Brain. Edited by M. C. Wittrock, et al. Engle
wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977.
Odell, Lee. "Measuring Changes in Intellectual Process."
In Evaluating Writing. Edited by Charles R. Cooper
and Lee Odell. Urbana: National Council of Teachers
of English, 1977.
O'Hare, Frank. Sentence Combining: Improving Student
Writing without Formal Grammar Instruction. NCTE
Research Report No. 15. Urbana: National Council of
263
Teachers of English, 1973.
Ohmann, Richard. "Speech, Action, and Style." In Literary
Style: A Symposium. Edited by Seymour Chatman.
London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
________ . "Speech Acts and the Definition of Literature."
Philosophy and Rhetoric, Winter 1971.
Ornstein, Robert S. The Psychology of Consciousness. San
Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 19 72.
Pedersen, E. L. "Improving Syntactic and Semantic Fluency
in the Writing of Language Arts Students Through
Extended Practice in Sentence-Combining." Doctoral
dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1977.
Pike, Kenneth. "Beyond the Sentence." College Composition
and Communication 15 (1964):129-135.
________ . "A Linguistic Contribution to Composition."
College Composition and Communication 15 (1964):82-88.
Pitkin, Willis L. "Hierarchies and the Discourse Hier
archy." College English 38 (1977):648-659.
"X/Y: Writing Two Steps at a Time." College
English 38 (1977):660-672.
"Pre-Writing: An Introduction." In a teacher resources
handbook prepared by the Huntington Beach Union High
School District, 1979.
Priestley, Joseph. A Course of Lectures on Oratory. Edited
by Vincent Bevilacqua and Richard Murphy, Landmarks
in Rhetoric and Public Address Series. Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1963.
Richards, I. A. The Philosophy of Rhetoric. London: Ox
ford University Press, 1936.
Rico, Gabriele L. "Metaphor and Knowing: Analysis, Syn
thesis, Rationale." Doctoral dissertation, Stanford
University, 1976.
RISE Commission Report Recommendations. Sacramento: Cali
fornia State Department of Education, April 1975.
Schiff, Peter M. "Problem Solving and the Composition
Model: Reorganization, Manipulation, Analysis."
Research in the Teaching of English, October 19 78.
264
Schultz, John. "Story Workshop: Writing from Start to
Finish." In Research on Composing. Edited by Charles
R. Cooper and Lee Odell. Urbana: National Council of
Teachers of English, 1978.
Scott, Robert L., et al. "Report of the Committee on the
Nature of Rhetorical Invention." In The Prospect of
Rhetoric. Edited by Lloyd F. Bitzer and Edwin Black.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice—Hall, Inc., 1971.
Reprinted in Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual
Background with Readings, pp. 105-112. Edited by
W. Ross Winterowd. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovano
vich, Inc., 1975.
Searle, John. "Indirect Speech Acts." In Syntax and
Semantics. Vol. 3: Speech Acts. Edited by P. Cole
and J. L. Morgan. New York: Seminar Press, 1975.
Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1969.
Shaughnessy, Mina. Errors and Expectations♦ New York:
Oxford University Press, 1977.
Sheils, Merrill. "Why Johnny Can't Write." Newsweek,
December 8, 1975, pp. 58-65.
Shuy, Roger, ed. Psycholinguistic Theory: What Can It Say
About Reading? Newark: International Reading Associ
ation, 1977.
Skills Continuums for Written Composition. Los Angeles:
Los Angeles Unified School District, Instructional
Planning Division, 19 78.
Slobin, Dan I. "Cognitive Pre-requisite for the Acquisi
tion of Grammar." In Studies of Child Language Devel
opment . Edited by C. A. Ferguson and D. I. Slobin.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973.
________ . Psycholinguistics. Glenview: Scott, Foresman
and Co., 1971.
Smith, Adam. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.
Edited by John Lothian. London: Thomas Nelson, 1963.
Smith, Frank. "Decoding: The Great Fallacy." In Psycho
linguistics and Reading. Edited by Frank Smith.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 19 73.
Understanding Reading. New York: Holt, Rine
hart and Winston, 19 71.
_____________________________: ________________________ 265
Smith, Frank, ed. Psycholinguistics and Reading. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973.
Sprat, Thomas. History of the Royal Society. Edited by
J. I. Cope and H. W. Jones. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1959'.
Staff of the Writing Improvement Project. Building English
Skills: Composition. Evanston: McDougal, Lxttell &
Company, 1977.
Strong, William. Sentence Combining: A Composing Book.
New York: Random House, 1973.
Strunk, William, Jr., and White, E. B. The Elements of
Style. 2nd ed. New York: The Macmillan Company,
1972.
Tate, Gary, ed. Teaching Composition: 10 Bibliographical
Essays. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press,
1976.
"Teaching Composition: A Position Statement." College
English, October 1974, pp. 219-220.
Walsh, J. Martyn, and Walsh, Anna K. Plain English Hand
book . Wichita: The McCormick-Mathers Publishing
Company, 19 39.
Warriner, John. English Grammar and Composition. Heritage
Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1969.
Weathers, Winston, and Winchester, Otis. The New Strategy
of Style. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1978.
Weaver, Richard. "Language Is Sermonic." In Rhetoric and
Composition. Edited by Richard L. Graves. Rochelle
Park: Hayden Book Co., INC., L976.
Winans, James. Speechmaking, n.p., 1915.
Winterowd, W. Ross. The Contemporary Writer. New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1975.
"Developing a Composition Program." In The
Teacher's Handbook developed by the Huntington Beach
Union High SchoolDistrict.
"The Grammar of Coherence." College English 3
(May 1970):828-835.
266
Winterowd, W. Ross. "The Rhetoric of Beneficence, Author
ity, Ethical Commitment, and the Negative." Philos
ophy and Rhetoric 9 (Spring 1975):65-83.
________ . "Topics and Level in the Composing Process."
College English, February 1973, pp. 701-709.
________ , ed. Contemporary Rhetoric; A Conceptual Back
ground with Readings. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc., HT75.
Winterowd, W. Ross, and Murray, Patricia Y. The Skills of
Language and Composition. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Inc., in press.
Wittrock, M. C. The Human Brain. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1977.
Young, Richard. "Invention: A Topographical Survey." In
Teaching Composition: 10 Bibliographical Essays.
Edited by Gary Tate. Fort Worth: Texas Christian
University Press, 1976.
________ . "Paradigms and Problems: Needed Research in
Rhetorical Invention." In Research on Composing:
Points of Departure. Edited by Charles Cooper and
Lee Odell. Urbana: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1978.
Young, Richard; Becker, Alton L.; and Pike, Kenneth L.
Rhetoric: Discovery and Change. New York: Harcourt
Brace and World, 1970.
Young, Richard, and McKeon, F. M. The Tagmemic Discovery
Procedure: An Evaluation of Its Uses in the Teaching
of Rhetoric. National Endowment for the Humanities
Grant No. EO 6238-71-116. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan, 1973.
267
268
APPENDIX A
HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT,
RESEARCH AND EVALUATION REPORT
269
HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
Research and Evaluation Services
1977-78 Ninth Grade Writing Program
Research and Evaluation Report No . 6
Series 1977-78
June 26, 1978
270
1977-78 NINTH GRADE WRITING PROGRAM
During the 1976-77 school year the Huntington Beach Union High School District
implemented a special writing program for all ninth grade students. This program
was "special" in the sense that additional funds were provided to investigate
the effect of a concentrated instructional effort on students' writing performance.
While this program was intended for all ninth grade students, particular attention
was given to a "target” group of ninth grade students who were experiencing
greater difficulties in writing.
The major elements of the writing program included the employment of additional
teachers with skills in the teaching of writing, a reduction in class size,
professional development activities, the use of consultants, and specialized
materials. The individual schools were at different stages with their existing
writing programs, and this factor coupled with delayed implementation of the
writing program and varying degrees of involvement produced somewhat different
programs on each campus. The 1976-77 programs were continued for the 1977-78
school year with 1977-78 being the first full year of implementation. This report
will not attempt to describe the individual school programs.
This report has been prepared to summarize the data obtained during the 1977-78
school year.
TESTING AND SCORING PROCEDURES
The testing for the writing program was conducted on a pre-post basis using a raw
writing sample as the testing instrument. During the summer of 1977, an assess
ment committee was established to develop a topic for the writing sample and a
rubric for scoring the pre and post student writing samples. Several topics were
field tested and as a result of the field testing, one was selected for use on a
pre-post basis. Following selection of the topic the scoring criteria were
developed. Copies of the topic and rubric are attached as Exhibits A and B.
Using the rubric, student papers are scored on a "holistic" basis. That is, the
paper is viewed as a whole and given a score from 1 to 6. Specific elements
such as spelling, mechanics, sentence structure, paragraphing, etc., are not
viewed or scored separately. Following the first reading of a paper, the score
is masked, and a second reader scores the paper. The first score is then unmasked.
If the two scores differ by more than one point, both scores are masked and the
paper is read a third time. An algorithm is then used to determine a final score.
The final score in all cases is the combined score for two readings. Thus, scores
will range from a low of 2 to a high of 12.
All ninth grade students were pretested on September 20 and 21, 1977. The following
week, 55 teachers were brought together, trained in holistic scoring, and in two
days completed the reading on the pretests. Of the nearly 5000 papers read, less
than 9% required a third reading suggesting a high level of inter-reader reliability
for the scoring process.
271
From this pretest scoring, students who received a score of 5 or less (combined
score for two readings) were designated as candidates for the special "target"
group. These students were to receive particular attention during the rercinder
of the 1977-78 school year.
On May 9 and 10, 1978, the entire ninth grade class was posttested using the
same topic. The scoring process was repeated. Again the inter-reader reliability
was at a high level with only about 102 of the papers requiring a third reading.
RELIABILITY SAMPLE
There was concern during the 1976-77 project that the posttest readers might score
papers at a higher level (knowing that they were reading posttests) or at a lower
level (expecting better student performance and setting higher standards). There
fore, a stratified random sample of the previously scored pretest papers was included
to verify the scoring of posttests. These pretest papers were identical in format
and could not be distinguished from the posttest papers by the readers. Thus the
readers did not know whether any given paper was a pretest or a posttest. This
reliability sample produced some rather interesting data which were unexpected.
The group data were quite stable in terms of the means and standard deviations, but
the individual student data were somewhat unstable. This' reliability check was
repeated during the 1977-78 project resulting in the fell owing data:
RELIABILITY SAMPLE
N - 497
MEAN (AVERAGE) STANDARD DEVIATION
FALL READING 7.02 2.24
SPRING READING 6.B7 2.22
The distributions of scores were also similar as shown in the frequency distributions
below:
RELIABILITY SAMPLE
N * 497
PERCENTAGE OF STUDENTS
SCORE FALL READING SPRING READING
2 2.0 3.2
3 3.6 4.6
4 7.2 4.4
5 11.7 14.7
6 17.9 17.1
7 17.7 18.7
8 13.9 12.1
9 11.1 13.5
10 7.9 6.6
11 4.8 3.2
12 2.2 1.8
272
It was noted that individual student scores for the two readings were again
somewhat unstable. These data are presented in Table 1 that follows. In summary
these data show:
A. 160 (32.22) received the same score for both readings
B. 194 (39.02) received scores differing by one point
C. 105 (21.12) received scores differing by two points
D. 38 (7.62) received scores differing by three or more points
E. The greatest discrepancy was 4 points (9 students)
F. Papers scored 6 or less in the fall tended to be scored higher in
the spring, and papers scored 8 or more in the fall tended to be
scored lower in the spring.
Some lack of stability is to be expected in individual scores obtained through
group testing (no single test score is an absolute, it is an estimate within an
error band). The 1977-78 reliability sample does show mbre stability in individual
scores than was shown in 1976-77. However, the 1977-78 data would indicate that
the degree of instability is still such that the reliability of individual student
scores remains questionable.
Despite the questionable nature of Individual scores, the stability of the group
data would suggest that valid comparisons can be made for'large groups. It would,
however, seem appropriate that pretest scores be adjusted to account for the
apparent differences in scoring with the fall and spring readers.
PRE-POST TEST RESULTS
Complete pre-post data were available for 4072 ninth grade students. Of these
4072 students, 915 (22.52) were in the target group (scored 5 or less on pretest).
The results for this group were analyzed separately.
In dealing with pre-post gains, the reliability study results suggested the need to
adjust pretest scores to account for the apparent scoring differences shown by the
posttest readers. Therefore, data regarding gains are reported in terms of both
actual and adjusted gains. Adjusted pretest scores were established by taking the
average score obtained at each score level in the reliability sample as follows:
ACTUAL PRETEST SCORE ADJUSTED PRETEST SCORE
2 2.00
3 3.72
4 . 4.47
5 5.41
6 6.11
7 6.99
8 7.38
9 8.49
10 9.03
11 9.96
12 10.73
273
TABLE 1
NINTH GRADE WRITING PROJECT— RELIABILITY SAMPLE
MEAN
SPRING
SCORE
DISTRIBUTION OF SPRING SCORES
FALL
SCORE
2.00
3.72
5.41
6.11
6.99
7.38
8.49
9.03
10.73
TOTAL 497
This adjustment has a minimal effect on the total ninth grade.and a more substantial
effect on the target group.
Table 2 provides a scatter diagram of the pre-post data. These data show that
across the district, the average actual gain was 1.32 points and the average adjusted
gain was 1.51 points. The greatest gains were shown among the lower pretest scoring
students, and the smallest gains (losses) were shown among the higher pretest
scoring students. It should be noted that this may be accounted for in part by
regression effects. Without comparative data for similar students not involved
in the writing project, it 1s difficult to establish the significance of the gains.
As a point of reference, these gains can be viewed relative to those obtained from
the 1976-77 (previous year) project.
GROUP
Total Ninth Grade
Target (5 or less on pretest)
AVERAGE GAINS
1976-77 1977-78
ACTUAL ADJUSTED ACTUAL ADJUSTED
0.51
2.04
0.45
1.42
1.32
2.91
1.51
2.47
On the basis of these comparative data, the 1977-78 gains are rather dramatic and
most encouraging.
Summary data on a school-by-school basis are presented in Table 3. These data show
the following:
A. Among the six schools, WHS produced the highest average posttest score
(9.39). This was consistent with the 1976-77 study in that WHS had the
highest posttest score at that time.
i
B. The 1977-78 date showed that EHS had the lowest posttest score (7.83)
among the six schools.
C. Within the target groups, WHS showed the highest posttest score (8.06)
and EKS showed the lowest (6.32).
D. The same pattern held 1n terms of gains for both the total ninth grade
and the target groups with WHS showing the greatest gains and EHS the
smallest.
E. There were substantial changes in individual school performances from
1976-77 to 1977-78 as shown by the following summaries of average
gains.
275
276
NINTH GRADE WRITING PROJECT
DISTRIBUTION OF PRE-POST WRITING SAMPLE SCORES
MEAN pre-POST GAINS
POst -----p -----
SCORE ACTUAL ADJUSTED
PRETEST SCORE DISTRIBUTION OF POSTTEST SCORES
ACTUAL ADJUSTED
2.00
3.94
3.72 122
6.64 3.64 2.92
283
6.96 2.95 2.49
5.41 443
7.50 2.50 2.09
6.11
734
102- U?4 ill 109 8.13 2.13 107
6.99
741
137 1.57 144 8.57 1.58 126
7.38 584 102 1105 110 8.82 0.82 1.44
8.49 458
9.12 0.12 0.63
9.03
340
9.60 -0.40 0.57
9.96 210
9.91 -1.09 -0.05
10.73
10.26 -1.74 -0.47
MEAN
7.13
MEAN
6.94 4072 171 461 673 658 472 296 550 1.32 8.45 633
TABLE 3
NINTH GRADE WRITING PROJECT
SUMMARY WRITING SAMPLE SCORE DATA BY SCHOOL
TOTAL NINTH GRADE
SCHOOL N
PRETEST MEAN POSTTEST
MEAN
MEAN GAIN
ACTUAL ADJUSTED ACTUAL ADJUSTED
HBHS 488 6.84 6.71 8.31 1.47 1.60
WHS 636 6.67 6.58 9.39 2.72 2.81
MHS 6 S3 7.23 7.02 8.00 0.77 0.98
FVHS 832 7.54 7.25 8.42 . 0.88 1.17
EHS 823 7.33 7.10 7.83 0.50 0.73
OVHS 600 6.87 6.74 9.00 2.13 2.26
DISTRICT 4072 7.13 6.94 8.45 1.32 1.51
TARGET GROUP (PRETEST SCORE 5 OR LESS)
SCHOOL N
PRETEST MEAN POSTTEST
MEAN
MEAN GAIN
ACTUAL ADJUSTED ACTUAL ADJUSTED
HBHS 118 4.11 4.56 ' 6.97 2.85 2.41
WHS
CO
CO
4.11 4.53 8.06 3.95 3.53
MHS 146 4.18 4.63 6.53 2.35 1.90
FVHS 143 4.24 4.68 6.48 2.24 1.80
EHS 158 4.32 4.76 6.32 2.00 1.56
OVHS 162 4.27 4.71 7.94 3.67 3.23
DISTRICT 915 4.20 4.64 7.11 2.91 2.47
277
TOTAL NINTH GRADE
AVERAGE GAINS
1976-77 1977-78
SCHOOL ACTUAL ADJUSTED ACTUAL ADJUSTED
HBHS 0.33 0.29 1.47 1.60
WHS 1.41 1.31 2.72 2.81
MHS 0.24 0.14 0.77 0.98
FVHS 0.28 0.32 0.88 1.17
EHS 0.68 0.61 0.50 0.73
OVHS -0.10 -0.15 2.13 2.26
DISTRICT 0.51 0.45 1.32 1.51
TARGET GROUP
AVERAGE GAINS
1976-77 1977-78
SCHOOL ACTUAL ADJUSTED ACTUAL ADJUSTED
HBHS 1.57 0.95 2.86 2.41
WHS 2.91 2.28 3.95 3.53
MHS 1.19 0.59 2.35 1.90
FVHS 2.36 1.74 2.24 1.80
EHS 2.20 1.58 2.00 1.56
OVHS 1.58 0.98 3.67 3.23
DISTRICT 2.04 1.42 2.91 2.47
With the exceptions of EHS for the total ninth grade and EHS am
for the target group, all of the schools show substantially greater
gains during 1977-78. The increase for the total ninth grade at
OVHS is the most dramatic.
F. The performance at WHS and OVHS for 1977-78 are substantially higher
than for the other schools, particularly EHS.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
The data presented in this report show that, on the average, posttest writing scores
were substantially higher than pretest writing scores. The gains were much higher
among the students showing low pretest performance. This may, in part, be accounted
for by normal regression effects. However, the 1977-78 gains for this group are
considerably higher than those for the 1976-77 comparable group suggesting a greater
program impact. The same conclusion holds for the total ninth grade population.
The performance of the students at WHS is most encouraging. This performance is
contradictory to what is generally seen in test results in. the district (WHS is
normally the lowest scoring school), but repeats the 1976-77 finding of WHS scoring
at the top. These two years of consistent data would certainly suggest a program
strength at WHS.
278
The dramatic turnaround of student performance at OVHS is also very encouraging,
particularly for the total ninth grade. This change would suggest that OVHS has
found or developed Instructional techniques that are highly effective.
The strength of performance at WHS and OVHS would indicate that the remaining
schools could benefit by reviewing their programs in terms of those at WHS and
OVHS.
The one area of general concern that remains is that of the sensitivity of the
holistic scoring process. While group data appear to be very stable and reliable
for program assessment, the instability of individual scores is such that individual
student assessment is questionable. This is in no way intended to detract from
the program data presented in this report, but remains as a separate critical
issue.
On the basis of the data presented in this report, the ninth grade writing program
has been highly beneficial to students. The results of this program would
indicate that these students have demonstrated increased proficiency in writing
performance which, if nurtured, should lead them to successful completion of the
required graduation writing proficiency.
RECOMMENDATIONS
A. It is recommended that the ninth grade writing program be continued.
B. It is recommended that the individual school programs be reviewed
relative to those at WHS and OVHS, and that those activities deemed
to be highly effective be incorporated into all programs.
C. It is recoimiended that the holistic scoring process continue to be
reviewed in an effort to Improve individual student reliability.
Keith E. Hartwig, Ed.D.
Director, Research & Evaluation
KEH:cm
6/23/78
279
EXHIBIT A
HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
STUDENT DIRECTIONS FOR THE NINTH GRADE WRITING SAMPLE
It is very important that you learn to write well as a part of your high school
education. The purpose of this exercise is to collect a writing sample from
you to measure your writing skills. This information will be used to help you
improve your writing. This is an important exercise for you. Please do your
best work. .
You have 45 minutes to write on the following topic. Please try to use
all the time given you.
PLEASE READ AND THINK ABOUT THE FOLLOWING:
All of us at one time have felt we would like to be something or someone else.
You have a weekend to be anything you would like. You may want to be a sea
shell, a movie star, a sports hero, a feather, or anything.
WRITING ASSIGNMENT:
... tell what your new self will look like
... explain what your new self will do
... explain why you want to be that thing or person.
280
EXHIBIT B
DIRECTIONS FOR SCORING PAPERS
The paper should be scored on the basis of what the student does well in response
to the assignment. Here the student is given a three-fold task: tell what the
new self looks like; explain what the new self will do; and explain why the new
self is wanted*
In scoring the paper, follow these procedures:
1. From an initial impression, determine whether the paper is upper half
(6, 5, 4) or lower half (3, 2, 1).
2. Once you have placed the paper in the upper or lower range, determine the
appropriate number within that range based on the scoring guide.
An extremely well written response may be scored a point higher than it would be
scored on the basis of content alone. A poorly written response may be scored a
point lower.
POSSIBLE SCORES:
6. A 6 response addresses all three aspects of the assignment. Though it may
have minor faults, 1t will be well organized, detailed, and well written.
5. AS response includes all three aspects of the assignment but may emphasize
only two. Although the 5 response will be less fully developed, less well
organized, and perhaps less fluent than the 6 response, it will show an
overall competence in writing.
4. A 4 response includes all three aspects of the assignment, but is weaken
the development of two. Although it is less fluent than a 5 or 6 paper,
it does display overall competence.
3. A3 response ignores one part of the assignment or treats the subject in a
superficial fashion.
2. A 2 response ignores one part of the assignment and exhibits a serious
weakness in content, organization, or style.
1. A 1 response ignores two parts of the assignment or is incompetent in content,
organization, or style.
* Non-response papers make no attempt to respond to the assignment or respond
to a different topic. These will be excluded from the sample and scored
separately.
KEH:cm
9/19/77
APPENDIX B
REPORT ON PROJECT LITERACY, A PILOT PROGRAM FOR
THE TESTING AND REMEDIATION OF WRITING SKILLS
282
REPORT
ON
PROJECT LITERACY
A PILOT PROGRAM
FOR THE
TESTING AND REMEDIATION OF WRITING SKILLS
PREPARED
FOR
THE TRUSTEES AND ADMINISTRATION
HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
by
W. ROSS WINTEROWD
DOROTHY AUGUSTINE
PROJECT DIRECTORS
SEPTEMBER 1, 1977
283
I. INTRODUCTION
This report focuses on the philosophy, implementation, and results
of a project designed to improve the writing skills of ninth graders.
It is written from the point of view of the project directors and is
essentially a descriptive account of the project, presented as a
narrative frame for the statistics and "hard" documentation which the
project will inevitably produce and support. Its usefulness is best
realized, we think, as one factor in the analysis of the project; it
may be viewed as a reference against which to define other, more
quantitative reports.
Though we do deal with statistics in one part of this report, we
prefer that their interpretation be of an intra-project nature.
Accordingly, differentials in student pre- and post-test scores are not
interpreted here in terms of district-wide vs. project class figures.
Comparisons are made from teacher to teacher, school to school, with
an eye to score differentials confirming or discontinuing the validity
of methods, materials, attitudes, etc., as they were chosen by the
staff and put to work in the classroom and workshop. Thus we hope not
only to eliminate redundancies of comparison, but in a delimited scope
such as we have elected, to report on the nature of the project, itself,
and the findings of the experiment as they prove to be useful to fur
ther research, implementation, and testing by the district.
284
II. BACKGROUND
2.1 Statement of Need
The need for a writing program such as Project Literacy at the
high school level has a short but involved histbry. Basically, the
level of writing proficiency in graduates of American secondary schools
has been questioned by administrators and teachers, employers and
college admittance committees, parents and students for over a decade
now. Qualitatively, all concerned attest to a decline in the ability
of the average young adult to communicate by way of the written word.
Quantitatively, national scores released in 1976 show over the past
twenty years a marked and steady eroding of composition skills of
entering college freshmen. For at least the past ten years, the
problem of competency has been addressed in either one of two ways:
identification of the cause, or correction of the symptoms at a post
secondary level of instruction. Thus, we now have ample rationales for
the situation: college open-admission programs; increasing ratios of
ESL students in the high school population; the post-Sputnik emphasis
on science content curricula; the degrees in literature, rather than in
rhetoric, as the only preparation for composition teachers, elective
courses stressing "experience" rather than rigorous analytic thought,
to name just the more obvious. We have found, too, that corrective
programs in a post-secondary setting— such as on-the-job training or
285
no-credit remedial writing courses in college— are costly for the in
stitution or debilitating for the young adult, sometimes both. Fur
ther, they are "corrective," and like the rationales do not provide
practical help for dealing with the problem on its home ground, the
high school composition class.
The State of California has recently mandated a competency-based
curriculum for its public schools. Reflected in that mandate is the
belief that society expects the education of our-young for a literate
life to be manifest by the time of high school graduation, whether or
not they proceed to college or to a job requiring writing skills. The
problem, therefore, is evident and evidently the responsibility of all
concerned with high school education. In terms of this project, the
problem was defined as a four-part question: what are we doing wrong
in preparing the student for a "literate life"? How do we recognize
and identify what we are doing right? How do we repair our instruc
tion? How do we test and refine a program in composition? Those imme
diately concerned with exploring some answers were members of the
Huntington Beach Union High School District administration— Dr. Jake
Abbott, Superintendent; Dr. Jack Gyves, Assistant Superintendent -
Instruction; Dr. Keith Hartwig, Director, Research & Evaluation— eigh
teen teachers of composition, their ninth grade students, and the proj
ect directors— Dr. W. Ross Winterowd, U.S.C., and Professor Dorothy
Augustine, Chapman College.
2.2 Statement of Philosophy
The theoretical base of any program in language arts, in writing
286
as well as in reading, we believe, must be student-centered. It must
generate from the recognition of the student as an already proficient
manipulator of spoken language who is being asked, in effect, to learn
a new dialect. Standard Edited English. It must proceed in the prac
tical sense by reaffirming in the classroom the teacher's capacity to
guide as well as instruct, to diagnose as well as grade. Taken point
by point, that theoretical base may be described as follows.
An adolescent in our culture is recognized by researchers in
linguistics as a competent communicator (Labov). He or she can make
needs known, can judge past and future situations and events, can
report on subjective and objective levels, can narrate feelings, can
adjust to audiences. In fact, most adolescents have a repertoire of
speech acts which, when studied, attribute to them a linguistic
sophistication far above the casual, and usually negative, evaluations
given to them by most adults. When the switch is made, however, to
decoding (reading) graphemes or encoding (writing), wide discrepancies
between competence and performance appear. Obviously, the discrep
ancies entail something other than lack of grammatical expertise on the
part of the student. He or she understands words and sentences in
spoken language which may never have been heard before, often in
dialects which the student does not hear at home or among peers. By
the same token, it is well known that every speaker of a natural
language is constantly creating sentences which he or she has never
before uttered. (According to George Miller [Smith, 1973] , every
20
speaker of English has the potential to generate 10 grammatical
English sentences of 20 words in length. We are reminded of the near-
287
infinity of that number when he estimates that it would take longer
20
than the age of the earth merely to recite 10 sentences.) Why is it,
then, that "languaging" is almost always so facile, success in "lan
guage arts" almost always so difficult?
An important part of the answer lies in the evidence of research
ers in psycholinguistics, a branch of cognitive psychology which studies
human behavior through the medium of language and its function. In
describing the phenomenon of reading, for example, psycholinguists
such as Prank Smith and Kenneth Goodman have provided valuable insights
for researchers in composition. One such insight has to do with the
reader's search for meaning (Smith, 1973). The student who is asked
to read these two sentences, "He winds his watch while the children
read," and "I read yesterday that the winds would be blowing," has
understood the meaning of the sentence before identifying every word.
Otherwise, the words "winds" and "read" would be pronounced differ
ently. And the student who reads, "The boy ain't got no candy," when
"The boy doesn't have any candy", is the sentence in the text, also
understands what linguists call the deep structure, the meaning. He or
she may not read every word perfectly, but comprehension is taking
place. In fact, if a reader concentrates only on reading every word
perfectly, much of the meaning will be missed. In other words, we need
to know what a sentence means before we can read it correctly (Smith,
1973). Our grammatical "know-how" is essential to our reading success.
No one can read successfully without that expert base informing the
task.
A given, then, in language arts instruction is the respect
288
rendered to every student as a "walking grammar." In composition
classes, that respect becomes evident in the teacher's attention to the
meaning of what the student has to write. If attention is paid first
to the student's correct word-for-word representation of thought, the
writer will develop a "scribal stutter" just as surely as the reader
develops a non-comprehending oral stammer when he or she is expected to
read a text word perfectly. The student learns not to take risks and
thereby fails to learn (Smith, 1975).
Writing is not the same as editing. Students need to practice
both, but to learn both at the same time, to be expected to produce
both simultaneously is counter-productive for the beginning writer.
The task of editing, therefore, must be made distinct from the craft of
composing. Editing is, in fact, a learning task that has much in com
mon with foreign language or dialect study and should be mastered in
much the same way— by drill and practice (Krashen, 1976). Instruction
is necessary in order to improve editing skills. Writing is what the
student already has. It should be promoted, guided, appreciated.
The successful teacher of composition will therefore distinguish
between what the student already knows and what needs to be learned.
The teaching of writing evolves from a conceptual base which separates
encoding, or communicating ideas, from editing, communicating ideas
in an accepted way. It needs to be stressed that such a conceptual
framework is not antithetical to the teaching of "basics," of what we
call Standard Edited English. Such a base simply, and profoundly,
recognizes that a student's potential to acquire the written dialect of
English cannot be confused with his potential to encode meaning. The
289
teaching of grammar is not the same thing as the teaching of composi
tion. It is a part of a writing program, not to be confused with the
whole.
290
Ill. IMPLEMENTATION
After extended preliminary conversations between Dr. Abbott and
Dr. Winterowd concerning the efficacy of a philosophy such as the one
described above, a proposal for the testing and remediation of writing
skills in the district was drawn up by Dr. Winterowd and Professor
Augustine and presented to Dr. Gyves for approval by the administration
and-trustees. Following a meeting on August 10, 1976, Dr. Gyves,
Dr. Hartwig, Dr. Winterowd and Prof. Augustine attending, the proposal
was accepted by the district officers and the pilot program began with
the first seminar meeting of project teachers and project directors on
October 5, 1976.
3.1 Seminar
The objectives of the seminar were (1) to introduce teachers of
composition to the latest rhetorical theories validated by research
and practical methods in the classroom and to acquaint them with an
inventory of tools, methods, and procedures which took their pedagogi
cal design from that conceptual base, and (2) by having accomplished
that, to provide the district with a core of informed professionals
who could replicate the pilot seminar in district-wide workshops.for
their colleagues.
Seminar participants met for fourteen formal sessions, inter
spersed by five informal meetings demanded by the volume and complexity
291
of the readings and discussions, in addition, five Friday afternoon
meetings were called in order to deal with the logistics of setting up
writing labs on the six campuses of the district. The participants
agreed at the termination of the seminar, moreover, to meet as a
continuing colloquium on a fairly regular basis throughout the remain
der of the school year (see 5.2 below).
The reading required of the teachers provided an essential theo
retical base, essential because rather than methodologies which pre
sume no philosophical underpinnings or which take their pedagogical
tactics from various and sometimes conflicting philosophical strategies,
a thorough examination of theory will, obviously, generate practical
methods and tools in the classroom which are coherent, unified, and
meaningful for the teacher and student alike. Discussion of the
readings invariably produced at least tentative answers to the four-
part questions (see 2.1 above) which defined our task. Some of the
teachers' observations, lifted from the seminar discussions and
papers,‘are relevant:
I was always told in college that writing
couldn't be "taught," that you either had it
or you didn't, a kind of romantic leaves-on-
a-tree syndrome.
All I know how to teach is the "basics."
You've got content in grammar. It's some
thing you can test and be accountable for.
Maybe'all of us have had the experience [when
we were students], of our own writing taking on
a big improvement because of a teacher who got
really involved in reading and understanding
what we had to say.
My students are people first. When I first
understood that in my gut, I found I loved
292
teaching. And when they got the message,
they began to love to learn.
Why hasn't anyone told me this before? I
feel I've been cheated. My students have been
cheated. What I've been doing right has been
sheer instinct..
I was an English major and by definition writing
came easy. No one looked at the process if
the product was okay. And if it wasn't?
Tough, that was your problem. "Heuristics”
wasn't even in the dictionary as far as I knew.
I've always known that real writing wasn't
determined by a student's ability to name the
parts of a sentence. Now I've got an expert
to back me up.
If you have a good writer in your class, chances
are he'll be a good reader, and vice-versa. What
"decoding" and "encoding" really means is that a
kid has learned the dialect of literacy.
With what we know now, I can see why it [Head
Start] was no big success. Linguistics scared
me to death, it still does, but it answers a
lot of questions about do-gooder projects and
why even the best of intentions go wrong in
the classroom.
Most teachers take their cues from the publishing
reps. I don't even consider a book unless it's
been field-tested. "Teacher-tested" means it
worked for the guy who wrote it. Big deal. What
my students need is not based on [one] personality
doing his thing. Even my own high motivation won't
help them unless I can come up with the goods.
Everyone equates [knowledge of] grammar and the
basics with [proficiency in] composition. How
do we get the news to parents and Sacramento
that they're not the same thing?
Testing writing the way you [the directors] think
it has to be done still doesn't allow for the kid
who's doing great all semester and then suddenly
on the test day is "out of it." Writing finally
depends on the whole person, not just on,.what he
can feed back.
293
One way to test improvement is to look at
the student's grades in other classes. . . .
That would only work if the other teachers
stopped giving multiple-choice tests. . . .
Well, I was thinking of reading scores especially. . . .
We don't know for sure that it works that way. . . .
Why doesn't somebody do some research on that,
find out if better writing makes for better reading?
The lab and workshop idea is good if for no
other reason than it helps me to separate ideas
from expression. Sometimes a kid will clean
up his writing and disfigure his ideas. Yeah
but then in the editing part you can see the
opposite sometimes. A student may be able
to see how silly and unrelated two ideas may
be once he’s syntactically fluent.
It should be noted that these observations were made during the course
of the seminar, and indicate the shift toward a conceptual base which
was to direct the teachers' efforts in the writing classroom.
3.2 Writing Courses
Sixteen of the original eighteen teachers completed the seminar
(with three substitutions) and, following the district-wide testing of
ninth graders' composition skills on December 15, 1975, fifteen of the
sixteen chose to implement the seminar materials in their writing
classes. The objectives of the writing course were essentially the
same as those outlined in the proposal for the pilot program.
3.2.1 Target Population
Ninth graders who scored below "5" on a scale of "12" in the pre
test were, in the main, assigned to the project writing classes.
But each project class had a liberal sprinkling of high-scorers, too.
The classes were to have no more than fifteen students. From one to
294
five sections of the course were assigned to each of the project
teachers.
3.2.2 Course Design
The approach to instruction of composition as outlined in the
original proposal was adopted by fifteen project teachers. Conse
quently, the typical project class divided its writing assignments in
terms of workshop and lab objectives.
Workshops were conducted in the classroom by every teacher on a
regular schedule for every week of the term. Mainly, they became a
forum of students’ reading or "publishing" on ditto their compositions
and receiving comment from their peers and assistance from the teacher
in the articulation of their ideas. Since topics or directions for any
writing assignment were shared by the whole class, this procedure
assured a mixed and critical audience, helped to promote a valid and
sincere point of view in the writer, and made for credibility and
interest in the composition. The student paper reprinted below, for
example, dittoed and distributed to the workshop participants, could
have produced the discussion which follows.
One day my friend - Susan - and I were in
my house and we were having a pillow fight.
By accident Susan threw the pillow too hard,
so I ducked and the pillow went flying into
a crystal vase from Germany and it broke
into little pieces. Susan said she was
sorry, and I knew she didn't mean it, but
what was I going to do? I quickly cleaned
it up, and hoped my mom wouldn't notice
it but she did. She was mad at first but
when I told her it was an accident she said
it was o.k., but not to have pillow fights in
the house anymore.
Teacher: All right. You all were to describe
295
an experience you shared with a friend and tell
what the. friend did to make the experience what
it was. So what's going on here? Did Deb write
to the assignment?
Student A: Yeah, that was some experience
all right.
Student B: Some friend.
Student C: That's kind of a neat mother.
My mom woulda hit the ceilng.
Teacher: How do we know that Deb's mom didn't?
Student D: She got mad, didn't she?’
Student B: How mad?
Teacher: Right. How mad? What does "mad"
mean? Do you see "mad"?
Class: Mixed yes's and no's.
Teacher: What happens when "mad" happens?
Deb?
Writer: Well my mom yelled a lot. And whenever
she gets mad her eyes get big.
Teacher: Maybe you needed to put that piece of
description in your theme.
Student B: Yeah, and that her teeth got pointier
and her nails got longer.
Teacher: Really. Okay, class, where else can
the meaning be made clearer here?
And so on. In such a discussion comments by the students and direction
by the teacher have centered on the problem of abstractness. The
discussion might have been followed by a brief in-class writing
assignment in which every student was asked to describe a person who
was. angry: what was said; what gestures were used; which facial
features were most affected; etc. The point is, though, in such a
296
\
r » - v ^ £i-(^
discussion, students share the responsibility of criticism. They are
expected to read critically, to analyze another's writing, and, by
extension, to critically assess their own.
Writing lab assignments were individually prescribed for each
student according to the evidence of need in their workshop composi
tions. Attached to the paper above, when it was returned to the
student, for example, would be the notations: "Run-on," "spelling,"
"Blue-book, p. n.," among others. The student, under the guidance of
the lab teacher, would select the materials appropriate to the editing
error or weakness and complete the lab assignment.
Depending on the physical facilities at a campus, labs were
either located in a room separate from the workshop or conducted in
the same room as the workshop. At Huntington Beach High School, for
example, the lab materials were centralized in one classroom modified
for use as a resource facility. A teacher was assigned to staff the
lab on a regular schedule, to receive and instruct students who were
referred by workshop teachers. At Fountain Valley, on the other hand,
space prohibited such an arrangement. Project teachers constructed
a floating lab with materials housed in portable files, rotating work
shop and lab sessions in the same classroom. Thus, workshops might
be held on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays; labs on Tuesdays and Thurs
days, in the same room and with the same teacher instructing.
Such a tandem approach to the teaching of composition clearly
identifies for the student the double nature of his or her writing
task: to convey meaning in the process of composing and to produce
that meaning in a form which is correct. Thus, expression is not
297
inhibited by fear of failing the standards of written English, but
attention is paid to the acquiring of those standards. Every student
identifies himself— as writer and critic— as potentially articulate
and, further, as one who is expected to master the dialect of written
English.
298
IV. MATERIALS
As stated in the proposal, the implementation of the project
required no vast inventory of hardware: "The real necessities are a
motivated teacher who is trained in relevant theories and techniques,
some programmed materials in printed form, and pencils and paper."
In fact, the philosophy of composition such as we have outlined above
would find counter-productive those learning environments which stress
machine-teaching and lock-step, programmatic learning.
4.1 Lab Materials
Two sources were available for the project teachers in their
selection and design of programmed materials in printed form: com
mercially published programs for the improvement of basic skills and
"in-house" materials written by the teachers themselves. The first
source involved a thorough search through available publishers' cata
logs and texts in order to select those programs or parts of programs
amenable to the philosophy of the project. Such programs as the
Cambridge Series, already in use on one campus, proved acceptable, in
addition to other nationally distributed publications. A program in
syntactic fluency was field-tested in the project classes-, made avail
able by a major publishing house, and observed in the field by its
Director of Testing and Verifiability.
299
The project teachers made available to the district the "pink
Book," a glossary of editing notations, examples, and corrections of
usage. Essentially a handbook, this reference was compiled, edited,
and modified as a lab and teaching tool in the writing course. It was
designed for the student, providing him or her with self-readying
access and control of major editing problems. Sections of the "Pink
Book" were assigned to individual students according to the teacher's
individual diagnosis of writing weaknesses in a workshop paper. The
student practiced the section until the weakness was corrected, evi
dence for that being a "clean" workshop paper.
The "Blue Book," field study materials from the forthcoming
The Skills of Language and Composition by W. Ross Winterowd and
Patricia Murray, was made available to the project staff by Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich. As a program in sentence-combining, this tool
proved invaluable both in terms of its primary objective (increasing
syntactic fluency) as well as in an editing dividend gained by students
as a whole and identified by the majority of project teachers. With
disciplined and regular assignments in the "Blue Book," the average
ninth grader in the project not only became more syntactically fluent
by practicing sentence-combining, he or she also overcame problems of
editing such as punctuation, sentence fragments, reference, and the
like.
4.2 Workshop Materials
Most project teachers .used a combination of what they had been
"doing right" in their classes previous to participating in the seminar,
300
and various strategies and tactics gleaned from the seminar readings.
The combination proved, for the most part, a cohesive package of
practical tools for improving students1 invention, arrangement, and
style. For example, at Ocean View High School, a module on student
journal-keeping had been prepared previous to the seminar. With
concepts provided by the reading (Winterowd, Augustine), journal-
keeping was seen as a means of encouraging invention and arrangement
as well as stylistic expression, and, consequently, the module was
shared by the Ocean View teachers with their colleagues for use in the
project course.
Journal-keeping encouraged a multitude of compositional strengths
in the student, and it proved to be one of the more "economical" tools.
Others, more or less focusing on one writing skill, were various
heuristic patterns (Winterowd and Young, Becker, and Pike), metaphor
and analogy exercises (Augustine), sentence-combining (Winterowd and
Murray, O'Hare), and publishing and editing (Augustine, et al.).
4.3 Attitude
Though attitude on the part of teachers and students alike is more
difficult to measure and assess than printed materials and the hardware
of any course, its influence is nevertheless an empirical matter— -
observable and ultimately co-efficient with what is traditionally
termed "course materials." By and large, and through the theoretical
expertise afforded by the seminar readings and discussions, most
project teachers brought to their charges a secure professionalism
which reinforced and enhanced their responsible motivation. The result
301
was that students were more likely to "tune in” to instruction that was
conceptually informed, coherent in practice, and results-oriented.
At Fountain Valley High School, for example, the three project
teachers actively recruited students, for their classes with the promise
of "a writing experience." They explained to students that the task of
writing— its process as well as the product— would be clearly identi
fied as far as methods and tools were concerned. No one would be
"writing in the dark," with success or failure a "chancy" or unexplain
able phenomenon. In addition, a general meeting with parents was held
to explain the objectives and means of the course, followed by written
communications and individual parent conferences. The benefits
attending such rapport are obvious. The initiating of that rapport
lay in the teachers' demonstrable and accountable knowledge of their
subject.
It should be noted, too, that as the project course continued
throughout the winter and spring terms, extra-project teachers on
practically every campus showed interest in the strategies and tools
used in the project course. At Huntington Beach High School, for
example, at least four teachers adopted the sentence-combining tech
niques in their writing classes. On a more general level, practically
every post-seminar colloquium had extra-project teachers in attendance.
302
V. FINDINGS
The original proposal termed this program a "pilot project." One
definition of such a project is implicit in its replicability, its
control, and its demonstrable proof of gains in the writing skills of
students in the project course. The replicability of the project,
the directors feel, is beyond question. The controls in such a project
must be difficult to assess simply because the humanistic nature of
such a study prohibits a white coat laboratory environment.
Indeed, with such a research subject as student writing, tradi
tional and rigid laboratory controls applied to either students or
teachers are irrelevant or significantly detrimental to validating
gains in language proficiencies (Labov). The project's controls,
therefore, centered on two criteria; (1) would project students show
a significant increase in holistically graded writing skills in com
parison to their peers in conventionally taught writing courses
(traditonal researchers would term these two groups, respectively,
"experimental" and "control"); and (2) would student gain differentials
significantly vary from teacher to teacher depending on access to or
implementation of the course materials considered essential to the
classroom practice of compositional theory. Additionally, these two
criteria need to be interpreted in light of the project sections
having students whose pre-test scores were above "5." "Project
303
sections," in other words, is not synonymous with "target population."
5.1 Pre/Post-Test Results
The following table shows a computation of pre/post-test gains by
school:
Pre/Post-Test Mean Gain By School
Total 9th Grade Target Group Project Sections
School N Gain N Gain N Gain
HBHS 612 0.33 119 1.57 35 0.63
WHS 788 1.41 225 2.91 226 1.65
MHS 794 0.24 171 1.19 165 0.18
FVHS 764 0.28 105 2.36 187 2.42
EHS 768 0.68 156 2.20 161 0.71
OVHS 596 -0.10 118 1.58 133 0.05
District 4322 0.51 894 2.04 907 1.27
Project section gains were computed according to these statistical
criteria:
(a) Reports of pre/post-test scores were taken only from '-'regu-
lar" ninth grade writing sections of teachers who had par
ticipated in the seminar. (No scores of Point I students,
e.g., are included.)
(b) Multiple scores were not computed. (Some students took two
or more pre- and post-tests.)
(c) Sections were treated holisitcally. (Every section had some
students whose pre-test scores were above "5.")
(d) Testing and scoring procedures were the same as described by
304
Dr. Keith Hartwig, 1976-77 Ninth Grade Writing Program,
Research and Evaluation Report No. 1: Series 1977-78
(July 1, 1977), pp. 1, 2.
(e) Mean Gains are actual computations. No adjustment was made
to accommodate a reliability sample.
Though the writing classes taught by all the project teachers
(project sections) show more than twice the actual mean gain of the
district as a whole, the wide discrepancies in mean gain from school
to school in the table above is the proper concern of this report.
Interpretation of raw figures in a project which involves so many
human variables is an impossible task. Some factors, however, . which
may explain the lowest gains are these: relocation of an entire stu
dent body to a new physical plant; priority of department objectives
over project means and ends; insufficient sampling; incompatibility
of a teacher's and the project's philosophy. In the case where depart
ment objectives were formulated and secured before the seminar was
announced, the project teachers were accountable first to their de
partment coordinator. Before they could implement many of the mate
rials from the seminar, they had to complete a program of instruction
drawn up by a committee of the department. Consequently, less than
half the term was devoted to project objectives, and the bifurcation of
philosophies inhibited the coherence of effective teaching once the
project course began. Then, one teacher at another school decided not
to opt for the "project package." He used none of the materials, he
said, and, presumably, he did not support the materials he did use with
the project's philosophy, it must be noted, however, that mean gains
305
were lower at Marina High School where lack of coherence aborted
project objectives than at Edison High School where, again presumably,
a teacher chose to "go it alone" rather than confuse his students with
two philosophical approaches.
Accounting for the relative success of project sections at
Westminster High School and Fountain Valley High School demands atten
tion to another set of factors. Concentrating on Fountain Valley High
School, for the moment, perhaps an identification of factors as they
correlate with success, i.e., as they are not shared in full by any
other project teacher team at any other school, may prove instructive.
1. The three teachers at Fountain Valley High School were
hired and appointed explicitly to teach composition.
In fact, they taught five composition classes each
during the winter and spring terms.
Their teaching of composition was thus interpreted
as their principal (indeed, their only) duty, not as
their share of the "dirty work" of the department,
diverting attention and preparation away from the
"plum" courses - literature and the electives.
2. Their assignment for the fall term was to immerse
themselves in the readings and instruction attendant
on the seminar and, following each seminar meeting,
to conduct theory workshops with their colleagues
at Fountain Valley High School.
In their first semester, the teachers were thus
expected to research and plan for their subsequent
teaching. Obviously, this time spent in preparation
paid off.
3. As noted in 3.2.2, above, the physical facilities at
Fountain Valley High School prohibited the allocating
of a separate lab environment. Formal lab require
ments were met, but within the environmental context
of the workshop.
The tandem approach to writing was physically
reinforced by a one-teacher, one-room approach
306
to the whole of the process and product of
composing.
4. A "public relations" program involving students and
their parents was initiated by the teachers and
their supervisors before the course began. Parents
were invited to share in the concepts and planning
of their childrens' instruction, just as the
students themselves were invited to join the
project course.
The teachers were thus able to draw upon a wide
base of understanding and cooperation. Students
and parents were treated as intelligent partners
in the quest for literacy.
5. Finally, the teachers were stimulated and reinforced
in their efforts by a supportive principal and
department coordinator.
While Westminster High School project sections benefitted from many of
the factors above, they did not share them all, principally #1 and #2.
5.2 Teachers' Evaluations
Four of the project teachers responded to a request for narrative
evaluations of the projects. Informally, nearly all of the project
teachers, at one time or another during the course of the project,
voiced the same'pro's and con's as those in the written evaluations.
Significant, too, is a remark made to one of the directors by an
extra-project teacher (a department coordinator) during the summer
following the post-testing: "I want you to know I'm sorry about the
flak we gave you last year. We're abandoning our lab idea and doing
it 'your way' now." This teacher was then participating in a summer
Area Writing Workshop, the concepts and philosophy of which he assured
the director was compatible with and proof of the project's efficacy.
307
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND PROJECTIONS
Terming the project a success naturally evolves from the project
class gains showing a significant differential from the control group,
the ninth grade "at large" population. Clearly, the project students
wrote better by the post-test scores, and their increases were larger
than their peers' in non-project classes. Project teachers, thus,
were teaching better, informed by theory and motivated by the profes
sional security which that conceptual base affords. Based on the
relatively outstanding success of project sections at Fountain Valley
High School, our recommendation for future programs and implementation
must relate to the five factors outlined in 5.1.
1. Preparation by teachers in theory and practice is a must.
Professional "grants" awarded to teachers in the form of
released time and/or subsidized course work may be one way
to assure the enhancing of what individual teachers may be
doing right, along with the eliminating of non-productive
attitudes and procedures.
2. Assignments in teaching composition should be accompanied
by the benefits of prestige. A district, a principal, a
department coordinator can by merit awards and example show
that teachers of composition are doing vital and interesting
work.
3. Students and their parents need to share in the confidence
that informed professionalism enjoys. Too often, students
and parents are "kept in the dark" because, simply, no one
knows what to tell them about the process of education.
4. As successful teachers become identified, direct observation
of their methods and strategies by their colleagues should be
encouraged. The teaching process, simply, needs more
attention, and until we are able to catalog all the qualities
308
of a successful teacher for emulation by others, our next
best option is to witness good teaching.
5. Thus, a continuing and evolving educational program, stabil
ized by theory and reinforced by policy and involvement, is
necessary for any long-term "pay-off" of Project Literacy.
6. To sum up, then: a recommendation must be made that future
programs to improve the writing of students be based pri
marily on preparing and encouraging teachers of composition.
Materials are secondary in such an approach. They become
ad hoc propositions to the human environment, to the minds
and sympathies which must precede them.
One last note on the "professionalism" which is spoken of so frequently
in this report. Part of the proof of its pervasive influence as a
result of the project are these plans, some of which are already
finalized:
1. Two of the project teachers will lead a seminar in the fall
of 1977 in order to acquaint their colleagues in the distridt
with the philosophy and materials of the pilot project.
2. A report on the project will be delivered by three project
teachers at the annual NCTE conference this November in
New York.
3. Dr. Winterowd and one of the project teachers are preparing
an article on the theory and implementation of the project.
4. Four project teachers are involved in research on hemispher
icity and pathology in writing.
5. A proposal for a reading series edited by W. Ross Winterowd
and two project teachers, to correlate reading and sentence
combining, has been presented to a major publishing firm.
The response has been favorable *
309
VII. ' [ project proposal]
To: Dr. John Gyves
Huntington Beach Union High School District
From: W. Ross Winterowd
Dorothy Augustine
Pilot Program: Testing and Remediation
in Writing Skills
General Objectives
(1) To create a replicable program that will bring about a sig
nificant improvement in the writing (composition) skills of students
in Huntington Beach Union High School District.
(2) To give district teachers in-service training in the theories
and pedagogical methods necessary to realize the above objective.
Specific Objectives
The program will be designed to give students clearly defined
competencies. In each case, increases in these competencies will be
measurable through tests.
(1) Editing Skills. Students who go through the pilot program
will make demonstrably fewer editing errors in their writing. We
define "editing skills" as punctuation, spelling, verb agreement,
pronoun reference and agreement, parallelism, and other surface
features of the written text. In other words, students will
310
significantly reduce the number of mechanical and grammatical errors
that appear in their writing.
(2) Syntactic Fluency. Students will increase their syntactic
fluency in a statistically meaningful way.
The concept of syntactic fluency is basic, and it needs just a
bit of explanation. To resort briefly to linguistic jargon, it is the
ability .to embed propositions within one another. The student who does
not have this ability is hampered by what amounts to a "scribal stut
ter" which must be overcome before he or she can master other skills
of composition. In this sense, syntactic fluency is the foundation
for other skills.
For example, the following passage is not syntactically fluent:
I know a girl. She likes to rollerskate. She rollerskates
down our street. Her pigtails fly behind her.
The following is a syntactically fluent version of the passage:
I know a girl who likes to rollerskate down our street,
her pigtails flying behind her.
We must stress: overwhelming evidence indicates that students
who are not relatively fluent syntactically can make little progress in
written composition. For this reason, it is crucial that disabled
writers develop the ability to embed as the first step toward compe
tence. Currently, extremely effective software is available to give
virtually every student adequate syntactic fluency.
(3) Coherence. Coherence is to the paragraph as syntactic
fluency is to the sentence. As judged by mature readers, the coherence
of students' writing will increase measurably.
311
(4) Development of Ideas. As judged by mature readers, stu
dents ' ideas will be better developed. Writings will be more specific,
will contain more detail, will employ metaphor and other figurative
language necessary for the adequate explanation of ideas.
(5) Point of View. Students will be better able to adjust
their writings to given audiences for given purposes. Criterion
referenced tests will demonstrate this group of skills.
(6) Mastery of Basic Forms. Students will increase their
ability to write in given modes and forms. Mature readers will judge
their narratives, descriptions, and explanations more satisfactory.
Students will also master basic writing forms such as the business
letter and the formal report.
Diagnostic Testing
Machine-graded, multiple-choice tests will not yield the infor
mation that we need to diagnose compositional problems and prescribe
remediation. Therefore, we suggest essay examinations judged by
trained readers.
In this document, we will not attempt to explain the details of
the testing procedure. However, our experience shows that reliable
judging of the essays will take about 125 reader hours per one thou
sand examinations.
Every examination is read by at least two readers. Where the
first two readers do not agree, a third reader judges the examination.
312
The Basic Skills Program
On the basis of test results, students who need to acquire basic
composition skills will be identified and will be assigned to a
flexible program of tutorials, workshops, and programmed instruction.
The teaching activities will take place in two kinds of environments.
(1) The Language Skills Laboratory. Since current research (as
well as common sense) demonstrates the close correlation between
reading and writing, the language skills laboratory ideally will pro
vide instruction in both skills.
We must stress at this point: we are not here talking about a
great deal of hardware, but rather underscore the need for intensive
teacher training in theory and pedagogical methodology. The real
necessities are a motivated teacher who is trained in the relevant
theories and techniques, some programmed materials in printed form,
and pencils and paper.
In the language laboratory, the disabled student will, under the
teacher's guidance, engage in carefully designed exercises in the basic
skills of syntactic fluency and editing. Furthermore, the teacher
(and, if possible, paraprofessionals) will give individual tutorial
help in such matters as making the talking-to-writing transfer, find
ing ideas for writing, and developing those ideas.
Instruction in the language laboratory will be completely indi
vidualized, based on each student's particular needs.
(2) The Writing Workshop. In order to e2q?lain the writing
workshop, we will give a general description of the sorts of activi
ties that go on in it.
313
(a) "Publication" is the primary "method." Students will
exchange and discuss writings. Students will read writings aloud to
the class. Writings will be dittoed. The class will edit an anthology
of the members’ writings.
(b) Students will be asked to generate topics for’writing
assignments, some of which will be done in class and some of which
will be completed as out-of-class projects.
(c) The teacher will participate more than direct. Stu
dents will be primarily responsible as writers and critics. The
teacher will be a "circulating" resource person who will help students
solve immediate writing problems and who will referee discussion ses
sions. The teacher will also be a diagnostician who will prescribe
specific learning experiences to individual students who need to
acquire basic skills.
(3) Interaction of Language Laboratory and Writing Workshop.
Students will alternate between the laboratory and the workshop, de
pending on their needs at any given time in the program. The writing
workshop will, of course, be "home base" for all of the students. In
order to maintain continuity, the workshop teacher and the lab teacher
will alternate assignments periodically, perhaps as often as every week.
In-Service Model
We urge that our comprehensive in-service training model become a
part of the pilot program in its second year. A copy of our proposal
for in-service training is in District files.
314
Costs
At this early point, costs are difficult to estimate. However,
items that must be covered are the following:
(1) Salaries for program directors (Winterowd and Augustine),
16 weeks, approximately $5,000.
(2) Testing costs: 125 hours of readers' time; duplication and
clerical work; consultant's fee (Dr. Edward White,
California State University and Colleges Chancellor’s
Office): We have no way of estimating this sum. Reader
time is obviously the major item, but since readers will
be teachers, the District must determine compensation.
(3) Materials: $2,000.
315
VIII. [SEMINAR syllabus]
Workshop-Seminar in Composition
Huntington Beach Union High School District
Project Director: W. Ross Winterowd, University of Southern California
Project Coordinator: Dorothy Augustine, University of Southern
California and Chapman College
Texts
Dorothy Augustine, The Thought of Writing
Richard L. Graves, Rhetoric and Composition: A Sourcebook for
Teachers
Nancy Ainsworth Johnson, Current Topics in Language: Introductory
Readings
William Labov, The Study of Nonstandard English
Frank O'Hare, Sentence Combining: Improving Student Writing
Without Formal Grammar Instruction
Richard Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Gary Tate (ed.), Teaching Composition: Ten Bibliographic Essays for
Teachers
W. Ross Winterowd (ed.), Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual
Background with Readings
W. Ross Winterowd, The Contemporary Writer: A Practical Rhetoric
316
Assignments of required readings appear on the syllabus below.
It is suggested, however, that participants in the seminar-workshop
carefully read everything in all of the books.
Term Project
Every participant in the seminar will complete a set of instruc
tional materials, based on the theories and techniques covered in the
class. Details of this project will be explained at one of the
meetings.
Schedule
Oct. 5
Lecture:
Discussion:
Assignment:
Oct. 12
Lecture:
Discussion;
Class Activity:
Assignment:
The nature and uses of grammar
Assignment of paper on the composing process
Perspectives on the correlations between grammar
and composition
Read "The Slow Pacific Swell," by Yvor Winters;
make notes on the processes you use in reading
and on your interpretation of the poem.
Reading and writing
Writing assignments based on readings; writing
assignments in general.
Reading and discussing "The Slow Pacific Swell";
making a writing assignment on the basis of this
poem.
If books have arrived, begin reading.
317
Oct. 19
Lecture: Essential linguistic concepts— socio- and psycho
linguistics
Discussion: Assigned readings
Readings Due: CW, Ch. 10
Lyons, p. 303, in Current Topics
Malmstrcun and Weaver, p. 344, in Current Topics
Shuy, p. 129, in Current Topics
Labov, p. 139, in Current Topics
Oct. 26
Discussion: Assigned readings
Class Activity: Sentence combining
Readings Due: John Mellon, in CR
O'Hare, Sentence Combining
Francis Christensen, in CR
CW, Chapter 11
Nov. 2
Class Activity: Sentence combining and stylistic analysis
(practical grammar)
Discussion: Assigned readings
Readings Due: The complete section on Style in CR
Ch. 12, "Words," and Ch. 13, "Figurative
Language," in CW
COMPOSING PROCESS PAPERS DUE
Nov. 9
Class Activity: Russian roulette concerning syntactic fluency
(brief presentations by seminar participants)
Discussion: Assigned readings
Readings Due: Graves, Part III, "The Sentence" (Comp and Rhet)
318
Nov. 16
Preview and Review
Nov. 23
Lecture: Prewriting and creativity
Discussion: Assigned readings
Readings Due: McCrimmon, in Graves, Comp and Rhet
Augustine, The Thought of Writing
Comp and Rhet, Part II
NOv. 30
Lecture: Developing Ideas: Heuristics and Creativity
Discussion: Assigned readings
Readings Due: CW, Ch. 2
CW, Ch. 3
Dec. 7
Discussion: Assigned readings
Class Activity: Using heuristics
Readings Due: CR, Section on Invention
Comp and Rhet, Part 6, "The Uses of
Rhetoric"
Weaver, in Comp and Rhet
Classical
Dec. 14
Class Activity: Synectics
Jan. 4
Discussion: Assigned readings
Panel Review: Style
Readings Due: Section on Form in CR
Graves, Part IV, "The Paragraph and
(Comp and Rhet)
Coe, "Rhetoric 2001"
Weathers, "Grammars of Style"
Beyond"
319
Jan. 11
Lecture: Philosophy of Good Reasons
Panel/Review: Invention
Jan. 18
Panel/Review: Form
Discussion: Pirsig
Reading Due: Pirsig
To be arranged
Visit to the reading and writing laboratory at USC.
320
APPENDIX C
SCOPE AND SEQUENCE FOR
THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
321
322
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 1. Writing for Yourself PAGE 1
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To help students move from the oral/
aural world to the scribal world.
To assist students in pre-writing
activities that will make their
own writing more interesting.
To introduce the concept of audience
as a consideration in all writing.
To enable students to develop and use
their awareness of images and sensory
perception.
To enable students to begin keeping a
journal as a personal record and as
a source of ideas for future writing.
To enable students to increase their
awareness of and ability to use
metaphor in writing.
To enable students to perceive the
importance of audience and the con
sequent need for clarity and sufficient
information in all writing.
Students will analyze passages for
sensory details and supply sensory
details of their own, usings
Descriptive words
Descriptive phrases
Verb choice
Noun choice
Students will begin to keep journals,
selecting appropriate entries.
Students will identify simple metaphors
in examples and write metaphors- and
similes of their own.
Students will learn the form (parts)
of a friendly letter and envelope
. and write letters of their own.
Students will revise exercises with
insufficient information to establish
"better connections" with their
intended audience(s).
Special Skills
323
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 2. Writing About yourself PAGE 2
• PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To introduce students to the auto
biography.
To assist students in vocabulary
growth.
To show students the importance of
choosing and organizing details.
To show students how chronology may
be varied for effeet in auto
biographical writing,.
to enable students to read and enjoy
short autobiographical selections.
To enable students to write short
autobiographical sketches.
To enable students to enlarge their
vocabularies through use of a
Mini-dictionary.
To enable students to use concrete
details iri their writing;
To enable students to choose and
organize details.
To enable students to use their journals
as sources for ideas in writing.
To enable students to understand how
autobiography is a narrative of events,
usually organized by chronology, but
sometimes made more interesting by
varying the organization.
Students will read autobiographical
passages and discuss their content
and organization.
Students will use a Mini-dictionary
(printed following each selection,
when appropriate, throughout textl
to ensure full comprehension and
to enrich their vocabularies.
Students will choose concrete details—
sensory impressions, data, and facts
— for writing.
Students will choose and organize
details to write a brief description.
Students will use their journals as
sources of ideas for writing
assignments.
Students will analyze an autobiographical
passage organized by chronology, and
complete exercises to vary chronology
for effect.
Students will write short autobiograph
ical sketches.
Special Skills
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 3. Getting Ready to Write PAGE 3
PURPOSES o b j e c t i v e s ACTIVITIES
To assist students in finding subject
niatter for writing.
To show students how to give structure
to their writing.
To introduce students to the tech'
niques of revision.
u>
NJ
To enable students to see that ail
writing has purpose.
To enable students to perceive the
importance of time and place for
various audiences.
To enable students to find subject matter
through personal experience, research,
and reading.
To enable students to take notes and to
organize their writing from notes.
To enable students to understand and
practice the informal and formal
outline, by topic and by sentence.
To enable students to derive topics
from subjects.
To enable students to become effective
revisers by addition, oromlssion,
substitution, and rearrangement.
Students will describe the purpose
for each of several selected
passages.
Students will complete exercises to
choose the more effective passage
for a specific audience.
Students will explain how time and
place influence writing on specific
subjects.
Students will practice finding subject
matter from:
Personal experience
Research
Reading
Students will take notes on their
reading or from personal, recall.
Using a standard card and form.
Students will organize ideas for
writing from their notes.
Students will complete exercises in
making informal and formal outlines.
Students will prepare Outlines by
topic and by sentence.
Students will choose topics from
subjects, learning to restrict
the subject.
(continued on next page)
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 3. Getting Ready to Write (continued) PAGE 4
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will complete exercises in .
revision using:
Addition
Ommlssion
Substitution
Rearrangemen t
Special skills
U>
to
tn
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 4. Finding Subject Hatter PAGE 5
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To acquaint students with, problem
solving techniques that may be
used to develop a topic.
U>
to
cn
To enable students to use problem-solving
techniques (heuristics) as a means of
finding information, details, and
descriptions for selected topics.
To enable students to ask six basic
questions (Who? What? Why? When?
Where? How?) for writing that involves
an event, a problem, or an explanation.
To enable students to view a subject
from various perspectives (As itself,
As one of many in a class, As part of
a iarger system, As.d changing pro
cess, As a system).
Students will use six basic questions
to find informations
Who?
What?
Why?
When?
Where?
How?
Students will apply the 5W+H questions'
to selected passages in order to
develop subject-matter.
Students will practice problem-solving
. by-changing perspectives, using these
ways of looking at a subject!
By itself, apart from any other thing
As one of many In a class
As part of a larger system
As a changing process
, As a system
Students will practice problem-solving
using the system for varying per- L
Spectives in order to develop subject
matter.
(continued on rtextpage)
SECTION Composition CHAPTER *•' Finding Subject Matter (continued) PAGE 6
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will organize information
gathered by each of the two problem
solving methods into short
compositions.
Special Skills
U)
tv)
-J
328
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 5. Writing About Ideas PAGE 7
PURPOSES
To introduce students to .expository
writing.
To show students various purposes
of expository writing.
To introduce students to a basic
paragraph structure.
To give students a further under
standing of the importance of
audience.
To assist students in developing
ideas for writing.
OBJECTIVES
To enable students to define expository
writing.
To enable students to identify the
purpose of each of various kinds of
expository writing.
To enable students to identify a basic
paragraph structure (topic, restric
tion, illustration).
To enable students to vary the basic
paragraph structure for effective
writing.
To enable students to broaden their
consideration of audience by asking
its beliefs, interests, how well it
is informed, values, and language
habits.
To enable students to develop ideas by
using data, examples, comparison and
contrast, and by defining.
To enable students to obtain data from
reference works and to question its
reliability.
ACTIVITIES
Students will identify and discuss
the purpose of exposition that*
Explains a process
Explains an idea
Makes a report
Presents facts or data
Explains an opinion
Makes a definition
Students will discuss the value of
written exposition as a means of
preserving ideas.
Students will analyze and complete
. paragraphs by citing or supplying:
Topic
Restriction
Illustration(s)
Students will write fully-developed
paragraphs which have a topic,
restriction* and illustration(s).
Students will complete exercises in
varying the topic-restriction-
illustration pattern.
(continued on next page)
329
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 5. Writing About Ideas (continued)
PAGE B
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will discuss how communication
is made more effective when these
considerations of audience are made!
What are my audience's beliefs?
What are my audience's interests?
How much does my audience know about
my subject?
What are the values of my audience?
What are the language habits of my
audience?
Students will analyze paragraphs to
determine how data is supplied to
answer questions about their subjects.
Students will learn to use the reference
section of the school and public
libraries to obtain data.
Students will choose statements with
reliable data from exercises.
Students will complete exercises in
developing ideas byt
Using data
Using examples
(continued on next page)
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 5- Writing About Ideas (continued) PAGE 9
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES .
(continued from preceding page)
Students will complete exercises in
developing ideas by:
Using comparison and contrast
Defining
Students will analyze an expository
essay.
Special Skills
331
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 6- Writing to Persuade PAGE 10
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To assist students in examining the
various goals of persuasion.
To show students the importance of
audience in persuasion.
To give students a method for organ
izing an argument.
To assist students in detecting
barriers to good reasoning.
To alert students to various forms
of propaganda.
To enable students to perceive that
persuasion may be used to take action,
to change attitudes and ideas, to
gain acceptance for beliefs, or to
cause particular reactions.
To enable students to identify the
appropriate audiences for various
forms of persuasion.
To enable students to organize an
effective argument.
To enable students to distinguish
between good and faulty reasoning.
To enable students to identify barriers
to good reasoning caused by lack of
information, ignoring the main point,
or distortion.
TO enable students to perceive and
identify various kinds of propaganda
and its consequences.
TO enable students to examine the
effectiveness of materials designed
to persuade.
Students will identify and discuss
these goals oif persuasion:
To cause people to take specific
action
To-change people's attitudes and
ideas :
To cause people to accept beliefs
To cause people to react to ideas
in particular ways
Students will write exercises to
persuade one or more persons to
act, changet believe, or react.-
Students will discuss the importance
of consumer action through various
methods of persuasion.
Students will analyze various arguments
by distinguishing good from faulty
reasoning.
Students will identify these forms
of persuasion in advertising:
Name-calling/Glad words
Glittering generality
Transfer
(continued on next page)
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 6- Writing to Persuade (continued) PAGE IX
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will identify these forms
of persuasion in advertising:
Testimonial
Card-stacking
Identification, or plain folks
Bandwagon
Students will use modifiers to make
statements more persuasive.
Students will practice writing per
suasive letters, articles, and
advertisements.
Students will analyze a selection from
literature and then write a reasonable
argument for or against the behavior
of the protagonist.
Special Skills
to
CO
fO
333
SECTION Composition CHAPTER 7. Imaginative Writing________ PAGE 12
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To introduce students to various To enable students to identify short Students will read and analyze a
kinds of imaginative writing. stories, legends, tall tales, fables. legend.
poems, and plays.
To prepare students for imaginative Students will identify
writing of their own. To enable students to identify plot,
character, and setting. plot,
To assist students in examining
various literary forms and To enable students to identify narrator character, and
structures. or point of view.
settinq
To enable students to identify kinds
of poems (sensory, haiku, one-sentence, in the short story.
limericks, nonsense verse).
To enable students to write dialogue.
Students will discuss point of view.
Students will read and analyze a
To enable students to stage a play. tall tale.
To enable students to identify conflict, Students will identify!
character, plot, and resolution in
drama. Third person nartator
First person narrator.
Students will read and analyze a fable.
Students will read and analyze a short
story.
Students will write a short story.
Students will distinguish between
poems that have rhyme.and meter
and those that do not.
(continued on next page)
SECTION Con.position CHAPTER 7- Imaginative Writing (continued) PAGE 13
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
1
|
1
334
(continued from preceding page)
Students will read and analyze)
Sensory poems
(lalku
One-sentence poems
Limericks
Nonsense poems
Students will write poems.
Students will identify and read
dramatic dialogue.
■ Students will stage and perform a
simple scene.
Students will identify
confl ict,
character,
plot, and
resolution
in drama.
Students will write a short play as
a class activity.
Special Skills
335
SECTION Sentences
CHAPTER 1 * Howto Build Setter Sentences
PAGE 14
PURPOSES . OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an overview of
sentence-combining procedures.
To explain the goals of sentence-
combining: syntactic fluency.
To enable students to understand the
goals and expectations of practicing
sentence-combining.
To enable students to understand how to
use the sentence-combining section.
To enable students to recognize subjects
and predicates and to review the
concept of complete sentences.
To enable students to recognize immature
sentences and to appreciate and prefer
more mature sentences.
Students will complete sentences by
writing missing subjects and
predicates.
Students will punctuate complete
sentences.
Students will, combine two simple
sentences to achieve an improved
version.
Students will revise sentences for
improved versions by adding
modifiers.
Students will recognize subjects and
.predicates by following a model.
set up as a means of introducing
the sentence-combining system.
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 2. Simple Sentence Changes PAGE 15
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
the simple sentence transformations
which allow for variety and semantic
change in language expressions.
To give students practice in performing
simple sentence changes.
To give students ah understanding of
the relationship between punctuation
and sentence form.
To enable students to understand and
write the Statement-Question
transformation.
To enable students to understand and
write the Negation transformation.
To enable students to understand and
write the Passive transformation.
To enable students to understand and
write the IT . and THERE . . .
trans formations.
U)
U>
CTi
Students will write and complete
exercises in:
Extraposition
Adding question markers
Changing verb forms to produce
questions
Moving auxiliary verbs to the
question position
Punctuating questions
Writing and punctuating tag questions
Placement of verb in negative
statement
Negation shifts
Making negative from a negative-
making shifts
Negation words
Negative contractions
Moving the object to subject position
Use of BE and verb form changes in
passive
Review of BE forms
Passive forms in questions
(Continued on next page)
337
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 2. Simple Sentence Changes (continued)
PAGE 16
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will write and complete
exercises in:
Comparing active with passive forms
as style features
Writing both active and passive
versions of sentences
Use of BE forms in inversions
Use of "by" in IT . . . inversions :
Revising poorly written samples by
using the simple sentence changes
Comparing and judging written versions
of the same material
.SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 3- Joining Sentences PAGE I?
PURPOSES
OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
the conjoining transformations
which allow for increasingly
mature sentence structures.
To give students an understanding of
the logical relationships of the
parts of conjoined sentences.
To give students practice in building
compound sentence structures by
using appropriate coordinating
words and phrases.
W
to
CO
To enable students to understand and
write conjoining transformations by
using coordinate conjunctions.
To enable students to understand and
write conjoining transformations
involving conjunctive adverbs.
To enable students to understand and
write conjoining transformations by
using subordinatofs and as sentence
connectors.
To enable students to understand' and
write the conjoining transformation
by joining sentences in a series.
To instruct students in the use of
base sentence and deletion of repeated
elements in sentence-combining
procedures.
To instruOt students in following
sentence-combining signals ah a . ' . . .
means of performing the sentence-
combining process.
Students will write and complete
exercises in:
Joining two complete statements
with And, But, Or j For, Yet,
So, Nor
Changing word order for use of NOR
in conjoining
Punctuating conjoined sentences;
use of the comma
Using the correlative conjunction
EITHER . . . OR
.How meaning is affected in conjoining
What the conjunctions "mean"
Use of adverbs as connectors:
However, On the Other Hand,
Therefore, etc.
Meaning of the conjunctive adverbs
Use of the semi-colon with conjunctive
adverbs
The semi-colon as a sentence connector
(conjunctive adverb deletion)
Using the subordinators Since, As,
Until, Because, etc.
Joining by subordination
(continued ort next page)
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 3. Joining Sentences (continued) PAGE 18
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will write and complete
exercises in:
Beginning sentences with subordinate
clause
Punctuating subordinate clauses; use
of the comma
Deleting repeated or unnecessary
words in joihing sentehces
Punctuating sentences In a series
(compound clauses, in series)
Adding sentences to front of fease
sentences
Moving additions within a sentence
base to produce stylistic effect
Use of colon, dash, and parentheses
as conjoining method; meanings of
each; position in sentence
U>
U>
1 0
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 4. Inserting Sentences PAGE 19
PURPOSES . OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
the ways in which mature sentence
style reflects the degree and depth
of embedding.
To give students an understanding of
effective placement of modifiers
within sehtence bases.
To give students an understanding and
appreciation of the variety of ways
to express an idea in sentence form,
thus opening up stylistic options
for the writer.
GJ
it-
O
To enable students to understand and
write embedments that create noun
expansion.
To enable students to understand and
write embedments that create noun
replacement.
To enable students to understand and
write embedments involving verb
expansion.
To enable students to understand and
write embedments creating adjtective
expansion.
To enable students to understand and
write deletion transformations.
Students will complete exercises that
will give them extensive practice
in embedding!
Embedding adjectives to modify nouns,
singly and in a series
Punctuating adjectives in a series!
use of the comma
Use of conjunction in embedded series.
Relative clauses (w h o, WHICH)
Punctuating unrestrictlve relative
clauses: use of the comma
Restrictive clauses: placement in
sentence: relationship to
unrestrlctive clauses (w:io . . .
WHICH/THAT)
Embedding WHOSE, WHERE, WHEN, WHV
clauses
WITH-phrase embedding; placement in
sentence
Gerundive adjective and verb form
change to participle (ING)
Possessive nouns: correct forms
Clauses embedded as subjects or
objects of the verb (WHO, WHEN,
WHERE, etc.)
(continued on next page)
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 4. Inserting Sentences (continued) PAGE 20
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
. (continued from preceding page)
Students will do exercises that will
give them extensive practice in
embedding:
THAT, THE FACT THAT, and THAT
deletions as subjects or objects
of verb
0
IT . . . THAT noun replacement
structure
IT . . .HOW, WHERE, WHEN, etc.
as noun replacement
WHERE TO, WHAT TO, and other . ; i TO
constructions as subjects or
objects of verb
Gerundive nominal: possessive
participle ING forms
Possessive + adjective + gerund + OF
forms; change in verb of insert
sentences
Abstractive nominal; change in verb
of insert sentence
Infinitive verb forms: recognizing,
writing, using in sentence patterns
Prepositional phrases as modifiers
Single-word adverbs; -Li form
(continued on next page)
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER Inserting Sentences (continued)
PAGE 21
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will do exercises that will
give them extensive practice in
embedding!
Placement of adverbs in sentences
ING constructions in sentence
patterns,1 verb restrictions
within those patterns
THAT + sentence following adjective
after linking verb
Adjective + gerundive after linking
verb
Relative pronoun deletion
Placement and punctuating of
apposltives
Adverb embedment deletion
Deletion of common elements
Recognizing and practicing alternate
methods of writing the same content
of a sentence to increase syntactic
fluency and sharpen awareness of
style
'Writing original sentences that
demonstrate maturing ability in
syntactic fluency
U>
f £ >
SECTION Sentences CHAPTER 5- Writing Better Sentences PAGE 22
PURPOSES . OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding and
awareness of options of placement
within sentences.
To provide students with practice in
evaluating the effectiveness of
varying sentence structures.
To give students an understanding of
the application of sentence-combining
techniques to paragraph form and
development.
To stimulate experimentation and
creativity on the part bf students
to maximize their abilities in
written expression.
To enable students to make sound choices,
among alternative placements of
embedded elements.
To enable students to choose more and
less effective versions from among
alternative sentence arrangements.
TO enable students to understand the
relationship of sentences to each
other within a paragraph.
To provide practice;in assembling
sentences from literature in brder to
understand how a writer's sentence
has been constructed and in.order,to
appreciate that the student can write
well using the sentence-combining
technique.
To enable students to write original
paragraphs through sentence-combining
but without signals: free-combining.
Students will write and discuss
problems in:
Evaluating effective placement of
sentence elements
Noting meaning shifts when sentences-
are recombined
Linking sentences to each other
within paragraphs
Ordering sentences within paragraphs
Choosing topic sentences and ordering
sequence of subsequent sentences
Examining the published writing of
others as a means of comparing
with their own' writing
.Combining sentences without signal^
Creating orginal sentences and
paragraphs by practicing the
skills learned in this section
(Building Better SentencesJ
> & >
W
SECTION Grammar CHAPTER *• WorJs______________________ PAGE n
■ PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students understanding of To enable students to recognize nouns. Students will complete exercises which
the forms and functions of the verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, Illustrate and teach the nature of
parts of speech. interjections, conjunctions, preposi the word classes of English
tions, and articles. (morphology).
To give students practice in using •
written Standard English forms. To enable students to select and use Students will complete extensive
correct forms of words. exercises in word use, especially
problems associated with spoken
To enable students to differentiate forms
characteristic of their spoken dialects
dialects;
and those of written Standard English. Noun problems
Genitive.forms
Pluraiization
Capitalization
Review
; Verb problems
Agreement
"Be" problems
Agreement with notional plurals
Agreement with coordinate nouns
interrupters
Review
(continued on next page)
SECTION Grammar CHAPTER 1. Words (continued) PAGE 24
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will complete extensive
exercises in word use, especially
problems associated with spoken
dialectsi
Pronoun problems
Case
Reference
Nonstandard demonstratives
Nonstandard pronominal adjectives
It’s/Its
Nonstandard double subjects
Adjective problems
Degrees
Adjectives that cannot be compared
Nonstandard demonstrative adjectives
Nonstandard pronominal adjectives
GJ
< J 1
SECTION Grammar CHAPTER 2- Sentences and Clauses PAGE 25
PURPOSES . OBJECTIVES a c t i v i t i e s
To give students a comprehensive
understanding of the structure
(syntax) of English sentences.
To give students the skills necessary
to write sentence in Standard English
and to recognize sentences that
violate,the norms of the standard.
cn
To enable students to understand
sentences and clauses.
To enable students to understand all
nominais, adjectivals, and adverbials.
To enable students to write sentences
with confidence.
To enable students to become effective
revisers.
To enable students to understand the
relationships among the parts'of a
sentence.
Students will complete exercises which
illustrate and teach the basic
structure of English sentences
and clauses (syntax).
Students will complete extensive
exercises which will help them to
eliminate problems of sentence
structure (syntax) in their writing:
Sentence and clause problems
Fragments
Comma faults
Run-on sentences
Parallelism
Shifted constructions
Hisrelated adverbial and adjectival
modifiers
Use of passive
Review
SECTION Grammar CHAPTER 3- Verbals PAGE _26
• PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of To enable students to understand the Students will complete exercises that
verbal phrases. syntax and morphology of verbal illustrate and teach the meaning
phrases. and syntax of verbals within
To give students the skills necessary sentences.
to use verbal phrases in ways that To enable students to use- verbals
do not violate the norms of written according to the norms of written Students will do extensive exercises
Standard English. Standard English. which will help them to eliminate
\ problems with verbals in their
To enable students to revise sentences
In which verbals are incorrectly or
writing;
insufficiently used. Verbal problems
Infinitive phrases
Present participial phrases
Past participial phrases
Absolute phrases
U>
J s .
-J
348
SECTION Grammar CHAPTER Punctuation PAGE 27
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
the systematic nature of English
punctuation.
To give students the skills necessary
to punctuate their own writing
(according to the norms of Standard
English) and to revise or edit
effectively-
To enable students to punctuate correctly
and efficiently.
To enable students to use punctuation
flexibly for purposes of emphasis '
and style.
To enable students to understand the
relationship between stress and tone
patterns in spoken language and
punctuation in written language.
Students will learn to punctuate
through completing exercises that
involve punctuating sentences and
passages for which no punctuation
has been supplied.
Students will learn to edit through
correcting erroneously punctuated
sentences and passages.
Students will learn the stylistic and
rhetorical value of punctuation
through repunctuating correctly .
punctuated sentences and passages.
Students will learn the four major
functions of punctuation by
completing exercises in punctuation
that
separates,
joins,
encloses, or.
shows omissions
in words, clauses, phrases, and
sentences.
349
SECTION Language CHAPTER 1. The Word Stock of English PAGE 28
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an appreciation and
knowledge of the lexicon of English.
To introduce students to the concepts
of semantics and thereby increase
their ability to Use language
effectively.
To give students methods whereby they
can build their working vocabularies.
To enable students to understand the
differences between and uses of
content,words and structure words.
To enable students to recognize the '
sources of English words and to
appreciate how the lexicon grows
and changes.
To enable students to understand the
historical influences upon the
lexicon and upon meaning.
To enable students to understand' the
concepts of etymology, definition,
word coining, word building: .and
other lexicographical problems.
To enable students tp understand the
nature of signs and symbols,
particularly language as symbol.
Students will practice interpreting
the meaning ot signs and symbols.
Students will learn the definitions
of terms such as sign, symbol,
etymology, connotation, denotation,
concrete and abstract nouns, etc.
Students will perform writing and
discussion exercises in:
Marking the semantic features oi
nouns
Using content words in context to
see how meaning is affected by
and derived from context
Examining the denotative and
connotative meanings of content
words
Examining the influence of connota
tions on various target audierices
Choosing synonyms to achieve
particular affect on meaning
Students will examine and understand
how words are built from roots and
affixes and will perform exercises
in:
Finding the meanings of several
common affixes and roots from Greek,
Latin, and other language sources
(continued on next page)
350
SECTION Language CHAPTER I. The Word Stock of English (continued)
PAGE 29
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will examine and understand
how words are built from roots and
affixes and will perform exercises
in:
Word combining; compound words such
as coordinate nouns
Using the dictionary to find affix
and root meanings
Students will understand the source of
words as loan words ftom many languages
including American Indian and the
language groups that settled in the
United States. •
Students will work' exercises in:
Using the dictionary to find
historical language sources of
words and semantic changes
Finding"the meaning of occupational,
place, and family names
Coining words: acronyms, neologisms,
trade names, etc.
. Word play and creativity in language:
titles, malapropiims, Spoonerisms,
puns
(continued on next page)
SECTION Language CHAPTER !• The Word Stock of English (continued) PAGE 30
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
351
(continued from preceding page)
Students will learn to use the
dictionary as a resource and will
work exercises in:
Finding meanings
Finding meaning change
Finding language sources
Finding shades of meaning (connotation)
Synonyms, autonyms
How to locate various kinds of',
information, as in Gazateer,
Index, etc.
Special Skills
352
SECTION Language CHAPTER 2. Figurative Language PAGE 31
PURPOSES
To give students an awareness of and
appreciation for figurative
language.
To make students aware of the purpose
ful use of figures of speech in
writing-and speaking.
OBJECTIVES
To enable students to be able to recog
nize and analyze various figures of
speech in prose passages as well as
poetry passages.
To acquaint students with specific
figures of speech! metaphor, irony,
simile, overstatement, understatement, '
allusion, personification, onomatopoeia.
To enable students to write simple
original figures of speech based upon
examples and instructions.
ACTIVITIES
Students will demonstrate their
understanding of:
What figurative language is
What figurative language does
Why figurative language is used
and on what occasions
Students will read, analyze, discuss,
and write figures of speech,
primarily in short prose compostions!
Metaphor
Simile
Personification
Overstatement
Major
emphasis
Understatement
Irony
Onomatopoeia
Allusion
Special Skills
353
SECTION Language CHAPTER 3. Language Change and Variation PAGE 32
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
major historical changes in the
English language.
To give students an understanding of
the levels of usage in spoken and
written English and appropriate
diction in written Standard English.
To give students an awareness of and
appreciation for dialects, dialect
differences, and the enrichment
of language through dialect
differences.
To give students an understanding of
language variations.
To help students develop criteria
whereby they can revise and improve
their own writing.
To enable students to realize and
research historical changes in English.
To enable students to understand and
appreciate the modern influences upon
language change and variation: women's
expanded role. Black English, media
jargon; cultural Interface.
To enable students to evaluate, choose,
and use in speaking and writing more
than one level of usage, emphasizing
written Standard English as the
desirable and effective written dialect.
To enable students to appreciate and.
value diversity in language, and to
practice writing or speaking in more
than one dialect.
To enable, students to detect and under
stand regional, social, sex, age,
occupational clues to diction.
To enable students to understand language
variation among groups of people, its
purposes and effects.
Students will examine through writing
and discussion exercises:
Using the dictionary or encyclopedia
to research language change
Researching loan words
Examining samples of Black English,
hip language, media jargon, et<5.
Observing and documenting language
variation in students’ lives
Predicting language change for fchd
future
Comparing British and American English
Reading and writing both formal and
informal English; Standard and
Nonstandard English
Observing and documenting social and
regional dialect
Using Standard American English as
a written dialect in friendly
letters, short narratives, dialogues.
Reading Nonstandard English or dif- .
ferent dialects in order to
examine the variations in language
(continued on hext page)
SECTION Language CHAPTER 3. Language Change and Variation (continued) PAGE 33
P U R P O S E S O B JE C T IV E S A C T IV IT IES
(continued from preceding page)
Students will examine through writing
and discussion exercises!
Examining samples of language
variation in:
Newspaperese
Shoptalk
Jargon
Cliches
Gobbledygook
Euphemisms
Interview language
Slang
Analyzing one's own writing for
excessive use of!
Jargon
Overused, stock nouns
Wordiness
Overused passive
Special Skills
CO
Ui
SECTION Language CHAPTER 4. Language in Action PAGE 34
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding and
appreciation of the importance of
audience, in language choices of
the writer.
To give students an awareness of the
language of media and the uses of
propaganda in our everyday lives?
to develop protection from propa
ganda and doublespeak.
To give students meaningful practice
in observing, documenting, and
practicing the power of language.
W
Ui
Ul
To enable students to write for several .
kinds of audiences, for varying
purposes, with appropriate language
for each audience and purpose.
To enable students to understand the
impact of language upon themselves
and to be aware of the factors of
the speech act.
TO enable students to understand and
use language in ordinary and special
oral discourse.
To enable students to see the impact
of language upon their social? mental,
political, and economic lives.
Students will write and discuss
problems in?
The language of advertisements,
print and electronic media.
Determining a writer's purpose
(?notive) and intended effect upon
an audience
Analyzing propaganda techniques and
observing them in use (radio, TV?
newspapers, teacher-talk, home-
talk, etc.)
Observing, documenting, and practicing
orally the power of language in:
Arguments
Telephone conversations
Panel discussions
Making apologies
Asking permission
Conversation
Special Skills
SECTION language CHAPTER 5. Other Languages PAGE 35
PURPOSES OBJECTIVES ACTIVITIES
To give students an understanding of
language as an extensive network
of expression that has forms other
than speech and writing.
To give students an awareness of the
specific nature of nonverbal channels
of communication.
To help students gain proficiency in
using other languages in order to
commun ica te.
00
U1
01
To enable students to recognize and
Interpret nonverbal systems of
communication.
To enable students to understand how
unspoken and unwritten messages are
sent, received, and interpreted.
To enable students to practice nonverbal
communication.
To enable students to understand the
regulative nature of expressive
languages. '
To enable students to peirceive the ways
in which symbolic means of sending
messages affect our daily lives,
especially in an electronic, fast-
changing world.
Students will use both oral and
written forms to work problems and
exercises in:
Defining "language”
Analyzing and practicing the physical
channels of sending messages:
Listening
Touching
Seeing
Body language and movement
Specific language media:
Films, photography
Diagrams, maps, formulae, sighs
Graphics, advertisements
Computers and machines
Animals, natural phenomena
Spacespeak, newspeak, doublespeak
How convention serves as a means
of communication
Special Skills
SECTION Reading CHAPTER Improving Your Reading PAGE 36
P U R P O S E S O B JE C T IV E S ’ A C TIV ITIES
To give students practice in reading
attack skills and exercises to
improve speed and comprehension
of students who do not have reading
mastery.
To give students a greater appreciation
of reading as a source of pleasure
and learning.
To enable students to improve reading
attack skills by using models which
increase efficiency (SQR4 and Goodman
methods).
To enable students to improve reading
attack skills by moving from the very
general to the increasingly more
specific.
To enable students to apply reading
attack skills to appropriate sample
passages.
Students will learn to scan> question,
and review using the SQM method.
Students will learn to scan-predict-
test-confirm Using a set of attack-
skills derived from Goodman.
Students will practice reading attack
skills on sample passages of various
kinds of writing.
CO
Ul
-J
SECTION Glossary CHAPTER ft Glossary of Language Skills PAGE 37
P U R P O S E S O B JE C T IV E S A C T IV IT IES
To give students easy reference to
terms, definitions, features or
rules used in the text.'
To provide students with examples for
each entry.
To initiate or to reinforce for
students the concepts Introduced
in the text.
To enable students to efficiently find
clear statements of features of
language, composition, grammar, usage,
mechanics, and special English skills:
To enable students to see examples of
each feature entered in the glossary.
To enable students to find the appropriate
section and page(s) of the text in
which each entry is taught.
To enable students With specific >
language problems to find appropriate
explanations and exercises in the text.
Students will learn to use the glossary
for purposes of review and reference.
Students will learn to use the examples
supplied in the glossary to monitor
their own work.
Students will learn to use the glossary
as the most direct access to instruc
tion in areas of specific, individual
difficulty.
[Note: While the glossary will derive .
from the content of each text, its
content will not necessarily be
limited to the content of each text.}
U>
Ul
00
COMPOSITION
1
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES BY LEVEL
1. Writing for Yourself 2- Writing About Yourself
3. Getting Ready to Write
Level 8 Level 8
Level 8
Personification Anecdote in the autobiography
Use of dally study plans, logs,
Exaggeration and understatement Autobiographical sketches that cover
diaries, planning sheets,
Interior monologues in journal three or more periods in writer's
schedules, etc.
life
Level 9
; Level 9
Level 9
Analysis of various audiences
Specific methods of organization
Relating a humorous anecdote Analyzing persona of selected
Making paragraph transitions
autobiographies
Using subordinators and coordinators
Level 10 Writing from first, second, and third
person personnae
Level 10
Organizing personal writing Letter describing oneself
chronologically, spatially,
Selecting or rejecting details for
logically Level 10
a specific writing task
Examining a personal incident.
Taking notes on observations
feeling, or problem Determining persona of literary
Using the journal as a resource
Hyperbole autobiography or letters
Level 11
Level 11 Level 11
Organizing the multi-paragraph essay
Using journal as source of Characteristics of "universal audience"
in several forms: description,
subject matter for more public Writing to wide spectrums of audiences
narration, exposition
writing
n
.Irony Level 12
Level 12
Allegory
Paradox Selecting words for their connotative
Formulating the thesis statement
effect upon multiple audiences.
Exercises in establishing effective
Level 12
work-study procedures after leaving
high school
Satire and paradox
Journal as a heuristic
u>
Ln
VD
360
2
C O M P O S IT IO N
4. Finding Subject Matter
Level 8
Five-question design for writing
about a story or an author
Class collaboration to produce
usable subject matter
Level 9
Using a systematic device for
generating subject matter
for essays or reports
Oral interviews
Level 10
Problem-solving through heuristics
Young-Becker-Pike heruistie to
generate subject matter for
topics in literature, science,
math, or history
Level 11
Burke's Pentad for literary analysis
Developing one's own method for
problem-solving
Level 12
Adapting heruistie devices
Applying more sophisticated
heuristics to a variety of
subjects
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITES BY LEVEL
Level B
Exploring ideas and feelings about
the immediate community
Level 9
Writing brief essays on notions about
the writer’s future
Applying transitions between paragraphs
Level 10
Writing evaluations from notes taken
from oral discussions in class
Writing a retelling or second-hand
account of an observed event
Selecting language for writing to two
or three different audiences
Level 11
Exercises in writing about one's ideas
to the formally constructed universal
audience
Organizing the longer essay, relating
parts to the whole
Level 12
Combining subjective and objective
accounts
Writing the extended essay
Writing objective accounts of subjective
experiences
5a. Writing to Explain Ideas*
Level 8
Objective vs. subjective writing
Citing sources responsibly
Paraphrasing
Choosing suitable topics
Level 9
Explaining a physical process and
an abstract process
Writing the book report
Level 10
Arranging details sequentially by
time or space, in order of import
ance, from specific to general
Analyzing a writer's reliability
Writing about topical ideas
Level 11
Writing reports on topics commonly
assigned in school
Writing business reports: resumes,
quarterly reports, job requests, etc.
Level 12
Writing formal expository essays and
essay exams for college-bound
Writing business letters and applica
tions for career-bound
‘Chapters 5, 5a, 5b are collapsed
into one at Level 7
5. Writing to Explore Ideas*
361
3
COMPOSITION
5b. Scientific Writing* 6.
Level 8
Variety of sources of information
Judging reference material
Organizing data
Level 9
Writing reports from observation
of a laboratory experiment
Using library systems for research
Level 10
Using "slanted" language for
specific purposes
Determining authenticity in
scientific data
Level 11
Finding scientific information in
newspaper and TV reports
Manuscript form
Preparing the research paper
Level 12
Writing scientific essays
Writing detailed business reports
Writing scientific abstracts
•Chapters 5, 5af 5b are collapsed into
one at Level 7. 5b may be collapsed
at Levels 8 and 9.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES BY LEVEL
Writihg to Persuade
Level 8
Writing brief persuasive letters
Dialogues to persuade
Level 9
Examining doublespeak
Recognizing logical fallacies
Revising material for one target
audience to suit another
Level 10
Letters to the editor
Formal letters to commend, recommend,
deny, complain, exhort, etc.
Short persuasive essays
Level 11
Identifying logical fallacies in a
variety of media
Debating an issue
Writing a logically persuasive essay
Writing a clear, arguable thesis
sta tement
Level 12
Formal logic
Evidence and proof
Writing extended arguments
7. Imaginative Writing
Level 8
Writing short stories, poems,
short plays or scenes
Level 9
Using short story* novel, sonnet,
feature articles, etc., as models
Personal enjoyment of literature
as a life-time reading habit
Level 10
Writing human interest stories
Writing short scripts: advertisements,
news reports
Examining language and audience for
imaginative writing
Level 11
Rhyme and meter, ballad stanzas
Writing dialogues between real people
Writing humorous captions for cartoons
Level 12
Writing poems in particular forms
Writing monologues or dialogues
Manuscript form of poems, stories,
and drama
Writing original folktales, myths
4
LANGUAGE
1. The Word Stock of English
Level S
Learning the terms lexicon and
etymology
Learning Greek and Latin affixes
Level 9
Learning Greek and Latin roots,
combining affixes and roots
Brief history of English language
Vocabularies of special areas—
occupations, diseases, etc.
Level 10
Growth and history of English
language
Theories of origin of language
Level 11
Comparing dictionaries
Examining special dictionaries
Level 12
Vocabulary exercises in words
commonly used in SAT, CEEB,
other college entrance exams
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES BY LEVEL
2. Figurative Language
Level 8
Prose examples of metaphor! using same
as models for brief paragraphs
Level 9
Writing character sketches employing
figurative language, drawn from
personal experience or fantasy
Metonymy, reading examples and writing
originals
Level 10
Reading examples of parables, anecdotes,
maxims, and proverbs! writing original
examples from models, derived from
both personal experience and learned
material
Level 11
Malapropisms, reading examples from
literature, writing examples
Oxymoron, examples from literature,
writing oxymorons
Level 12
Recognizing and creating symbols in
literature, e.g. Conrad's Congo,
Forster's Malabar Caves, Coleridge's
albatross, Faulkner's bear
3. Language Change and Variation
Level 8
Comparison of English with other
languages such as pidgins
Variations in language, jargon and
slang, shoptalk, euphemisms
Valuing variety in language
Level 9
Universal languages, e.g. Esperanto
Power dialect! Standard English in US’
Dialects and language enrichment
Level 10
Structural changes in English
Technical language, space-speak, etc.'
Empty words (very, thing, etc.)
Officialese
Level 11
Predicting future English changes
Employing appropriate language in
oral interviews
Level 12
Employing appropriate levels of
usage in college interviews,
applications, job interviews,
questionnaires, etc.
CO
CD
to
363
5
L A N G U A G E
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES BY LEVEL
4. Language in Action 5.
Level 8
Analyzing and writing promotional
materials
Exercises in which language is
absent, but communication
attempted: observations
Level 9
Social and political consequences
of language Spoken and written
by specific groups
Level 10
Language and race
Language and politics
Detecting writers' motives in
fiction, non-fiction, business,
politics, textbooks, ads, etc.
Level 11
Analyzing effects of writing on
oneself as student, consumer,
member of a group, potential
head of a household, parent
Level 12
Other Languages
Level 8
Interpreting messages from various media
Sending messages through body movement
Composing messages in nonverbal media
Understanding the nature of signals
Level 9
Pictographs, heiroglyphics, etc.
Visual language! billboards, posters, etc.
Mathematical and scientific language
Codes, including Morse, linear, Braille,
IBM punch cards
ESP and mental telepathy
Level 10
Films as visual language
Conscious vs. unconscious signals
Silence as language
Sending more than one message simultaneously
Sending surface message with contradictory
sub-surface message
Level 11
Visual language to accompany written
material (illustrating)
Consequences of media explosion
Writing letters of application, Level 12
resumes, exam questions, etc.,
commonly practiced in adult life Analyzing and writing about the impact
Understanding phatic speech of non-written, non-spoken language
on our lives
APPENDIX D
SALES FEATURES OR CRITERIA FOR
THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
364
SALES FEATURES OR CRITERIA FOR
THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION [WT]
I. The series will be comprehensive
A. Discrete sections will permit flexible use
1. Composition
2. Building Better Sentences
3. Grammar
4. Reading Attack Skills
5. Language
6. Special Skills and Applications
B. The approach will be eclectic
1. The series will recognize the priorities of
English instruction and the increasing account
ability of schools to teach basic English
skills which may be tested
2. The series will draw from what has been most
successful in teaching language and composition
3. The treatment of composition and grammar skills
will be approximately equal
4. The series will use traditional terminology
5. The series will give solid grounding in stan
dard English, while considering and valuing the
whole variety of American English
365
6. Models will show a variety of kinds of writing,
including work by students, by respected
writers and from all subject areas
C. Each section will reinforce another
1. All major skills will be taught discretely and
reviewed in the context of other skills
2. Skill exercises, when appropriate, will syn
thesize the elements of grammar and composi
tion
3. A glossary will list all skills with examples
and page references to appropriate exercises
D. Each book will be complete in itself
1. Students may enter at any grade level
2. Students may enter from a variety of K-6
programs
3. Students using the entire series will encoun
ter more sophisticated exercises at each grade
level.
II. The series will be based on sound learning strategies
A. Students will learn through extensive practice and
application
1. Minimum exposition will permit maximum oppor
tunity for student work
2. All students will attain some success in
exercises
3. Students will work both inductively and deduc-
366
tively, since the series will recognize the
differences between left and right hemi
sphericity in students
B. English will be presented as being practical and
systematic
1. The reason and purpose for learning each lan
guage and composition skill will be clearly
stated
2. Because the skills of grammar, usage, and
mechanics are mastered by practice, for each
a rule will be stated, a model given, and
exercises provided
3. Students will learn that the writing of sen
tences, paragraphs, and compositions involves
the application of formulas to achieve clarity
4. Students will learn how to use rules, models,
and formulas to monitor their own work
5. Students will see the similarity of some
areas of English study to their other studies
6. Students, whether career-bound or college-
bound, will appreciate how mastery of English
skills and applications is useful
III. The series will require little teacher preparation
A. English teachers will be comfortable with the
content
1. No special training or in-service work will
367
be necessary
2. The direct, common-sense tone of the series
will "field" many questions that consume
classroom time
B. Teachers*may follow each book sequentially or use
each randomly to meet special classroom needs
C. Comprehensive manuals, with answers to all exer
cises, will explain intent and rationale, enabling
teachers to set their own classroom goals
IV. The series will be acceptable to a broad market
A. The series will meet compliance guidelines for:
1. Sexual equality
2. Cultural pluralism
3. Representation of entrepreneurs and laborers
4. Concern for ecology and the environment
5. Cautions against harmful substances
6. Religious tolerance
B. The series will fulfill requirements of calls for
state adoptions, including:
1. Recent findings in linguistic research
2. The difference between oral and written
communication
3. Metric conversions
C. The format and design will be appealing
1. Pages will be 7 1/2 x 9 1/4 for open design
and to provide space for special features
368
2. Exercises will have a typographical weight
equal to that of exposition
3. Second color will be used throughout for em
phasis
4. The maximum length of any book will be 600
pages
5. Photographs will be used for illustrations
and motivation, and only when they enhance
the text
D. The series will be closely supervised
1. USC Institute participants will review
materials
2. Classroom teachers will test and evaluate
materials
3. DVT will evaluate materials
4. Regional sales meetings will be held to
evaluate materials
5. All members of the Publications Board will
review manuscripts against two leading com
petitors before acceptance of manuscript
369
APPENDIX E
FINAL ORGANIZATION:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR
THE SKILLS OF LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION
370
Table of Contents
THE COMPOSITION WORKSHOP 1
Using The Composition Workshop i
1. Writing for Yourself: The Journal 1
Keeping a Journal 1
Why Keep a Journal 1
Reading Journal Writing 3
Writing About Your World 7
Observing Your World: Noting
Sense Details 10
Reading Journal Writing 14
Being Specific * 19
Making Comparisons 24
Using Metaphors 28
More Journal Writing 30
2. Writing About Yourself: Autobiography 39
Reading Autobiography 40
Organizing Your Autobiography '45
Selecting Details 49
Details of Dialogue 55
Organizing Details 59
Describing a Person 64
Reading Autobiography 75
Improving Your Writing 80
Revising Your Autobiography 80
Checklist for Revision 80
Proofreading Your Autobiography 82
Checklist for Proofreading 82
More Autobiography Writing 85
3. Writing to Inform: Exposition 87
A Useful Word: Exposition 87
The Uses of Expository Writing 87
Purpose and the Way You Write 92
Precise Writing 92
Clear Writing 93
Reading Expository Writing 94
Finding Subject Matter 99
You and Your Subject 100
Focusing Your Writing 103
Gathering Material 108
371
Making Notes 109
Planning Your Writing 112
The Informal Outline 115
Considering Your Reader 119
4. Gathering Information for Writing 125
Finding Something to Say 125
Getting Started: Brainstorming 125
Making Connections to Create Ideas 129
The Who? What? Why? When? Where?
How? Sytem 131
Using the Who? What? Why? When?
Where? How? System 135
A New Set of Questions 142
How Point of View Works 142
Ways of Looking at a Subject 145
Applying Problem Solving 148
5. Writing the Paragraph 149
Building a Paragraph 149
Variations on Basic Paragraph
Patterns 155
Developing Paragraphs 158
Development with Details 158
Development with Examples 161
Development with Reasons 164
Development Through Comparison 167
Development Through Anecdote 180
Unity in a Paragraph 182
Coherence in a Paragraph 185
Transitional Devices 188
6. Writing the Short Expository Paper 192
Writing the Composition 192
The Thesis 192
Writing the Introduction 195
Writing the Body 199
Writing the Conclusion 202
Revising Your Expository Paper 205
Checklist for Revision 205
Proofreading Your Expository Paper 206
More Expository Writing 207
7. Writing from Research:' The Report 210
The Report 210
Sources of Information 210
372
A Report from One Source: The
Summary
A Report from Several Sources;
211
The Research Paper 219
Choosing a Subject 219
Limiting your Subject 220
Using the Encyclopedia 220
Gathering Information 222
The Bibliography Card 222
Asking Questions 223
Taking Notes 224
The Formal Outline 226
The Rough Draft 231
The Final Draft 234
The Bibliography 235
A Short Research Report 237
8. Writing to Persuade 242
Writing from Good Reasoning 242
How Language Affects Us 244
The Appeal to Emotion 247
The Appeal to Reason 254
Learning to Reason Well 255
Organizing an Argument 260
Defining Your Views 260
Knowing Your Audience 263
A Letter to the Editor 266
Reading a Letter to the Editor 272
Developing a Persuasive Paragraph 276
A Persuasive Paper 288
The Thesis Statement 288
The Body of the Paper 291
Writing the Conclusion 294
Revising Your Persuasive Writing
Checklist for Revising Persuasive
295
Writing
Proofreading Your Persuasive
295
Writing 297
9. Writing for the Business World 298
The Business Letter 298
The Letter of Application 299
The Form of a Business Letter 304
Mailing a Business Letter 310
The Order Letter 311
A Letter of Request 314
An Adjustment Letter 318
The Application Form 321
A Checklist for Business Writing 326
373
10. Writing from Imagination: The
Poem, Story, and Play 328
Playing with Words 328
Humorous Ways with Words 329
The Feeling of Words 333
The Sound of Words 338
Writing Sense Poems 342
Haiku: A Special Sense Poem 345
Writing a Story 347
The Elements of a Story 347
Plot 348
Character 352
Conflict 354
Setting 359
The Storyteller 362
Finding Meaning in Stories 365
From Dialogue to Drama 375
Writing a Short Play 381
More Creative Writing 382
11. Exploring the Library 385
How Books Are Arranged 385
The Dewey Decimal System 385
The Call Number 389
Biographies and Autobiographies . 389
Fiction 391
The Library of Congress System 392
Fiction and Biography 393
How to Find a Book 394
The Card Catalog 394
The Author Card 394
The Subject Card 395
The Title Card 396
The "See" and "See Also" Card 298
Finding the Book on the Shelves 401
Books with Dewey Decimal Numbers 401
Books with Library of Congress
Numbers 403
Finding Information in Magazines
and Periodicals 403
Abbreviation Key to the Readers *
Guide 406
Finding Information in Pamphlets 411
Finding Special Information:
Reference Books 412
Encyclopedias 412
Dictionaries of Synonyms 414
Almanacs 417
374
12. Using the Dictionary 419
A Man of Many Words 419
Using the Dictionary 422
Finding a Word in the Dictionary 423
Word Entries 425
Spelling 426
Syllables 426
Pronunciation 428
Diacritical Marks 428
Simplified Spellings 430
Accent Marks 431
The Schwa 434
Parts of Speech 435
Usage Labels 438
Synonyms 440
Word History 440
Definitions 442
A Dictionary Page 446
A Guide to the Dictionary 447
A Dictionary Guide 447
13. Building Your Vocabulary 449
Building Vocabulary 449
Vocabulary: Diagnostic Test 452
How Words Mean in Context 454
Finding Meaning Through Context 459
Denotation and Connotation 466
Connotation and Synonyms 470
Choosing the Specific Synonym 475
Homonyms 478
Finding Meaning Through Structure 481
Compound Words 481
Prefixes, Suffixes, and Roots 482
Prefixes 486
Suffixes 488
A Word List 491
14. Writing with Variety:
Sentence Combining 524
Learning to Write with Variety 524
Adding Sentence to Sentence 525
A Word About punctuation 529
Adverbs That Connect Sentences 532
A Special Connector 536
Connecting Sentences of Unequal
Importance 540
A Word About Punctuation 541
Adding Sentences in a Series 547
375
Special Connectors: The Colon,
Dash, and Parentheses 556
Inserting Sentences 561
Combining with (WHO) and (WHICH) 568
A Word About Punctuation
Combining with (WHO), (WHOM), (WHICH)
569
(WHICH/THAT) Additions
Combining with (WHOSE), (WHERE),
573
(WHEN), and (WHY) 577
With-Phrases 580
-ING and 'S Changes
Combining with (WHERE), (WHEN),
583
and (HOW)
New Ways to Combine with (WHO),
(WHERE), (WHAT), (WHY),
594
and (HOW)
Combining with (THE FACT THAT),
600
(THAT), and (JOIN) 603
Combining with (IT . . . THAT)
Combining with (IT . . -) and
605
(HOW . . .) 607
Combining with (WITH . . . TO) 610
•S and a New Use of -ING 614
Combining with (OF) 617
Word Changes That Work Like -ING 620
More Combinations with (TO . . .) 623
Combining with (TO + VERB)
A New Way to Use (THAT . . .) and
634
(FOR . . .) Combinations 638
(—ING) Again 641
A New Signal for Removing Words 644
Writing Sentences and Paragraphs 650
Adding in Front of the Sentence Base 651
Making Choices for Combining 654
Combining Sentences into Paragraphs
THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY 1
660
Using the Language Laboratory 1
1. The Parts of Speech 4
Understanding Nouns 4
A Description of Nouns 5
Compound Nouns 7
Common Nouns and Proper Nouns
Nouns That May Be Either Common
7
or Proper 9
Nouns with Regular Plurals 11
Plurals of Nouns Ending in 12
376
Nouns with Irregular Plurals 13
The Possessive Form of Nouns 15
Usinq Nouns
20
Nouns That Must Be Capitalized 20
Adjectives That Must Be Capitalized 22
Plurals of Common Nouns 23
Possessive Form of Nouns Ending in -s
When a Noun May Be Dropped after
25
a Possessive 27
Understanding Verbs 33
Linking Verbs 34
A Description of Verbs 34
Verbs Have Tense 36
Verbs in Present Tense 36
Verbs in Past Tense 38
Verb phrases 41
Verbs in Future Tense 42
Verbs in the Progressive Tenses 43
Verbs in the Perfect Tenses 45
Principal Parts of the Verb
Distinguishing Between Forms of
46
the Perfect Tenses 49
A Review of Verb Tenses 52
Usinq Verbs 58
The Use of the Narrative Present 58
Consistency of Tenses 59
Principal Parts of verbs 62
Verb Agreement 65
Agreement with the Unusual Verb be
Verb Agreement When Singular Nouns
66
Have Plural Meanings
Verb Agreement with Compound Subjects
68
That Are Singular
Finding the True Subject to
70
Determine Agreement
Verb Agreement with Words Like
71
each and everyone 73
Verb Agreement with don't and doesn’t
Substitutions of be for Another
74
Form of the Verb 75
Problems with -ed Endings
Verbs Often Misused: lie and lay.
76
sit and set 77
Understanding Pronouns 88
Personal Pronouns 90
Possessive Forms of Personal Pronouns 93
Reflexive Pronouns
Correct Use of Personal Pronouns
95
in Compounds
Correct Use of Personal Pronouns
99
in Special Situations 100
Relative Pronouns 103
377
Relative Pronouns as Subjects and
Objects 104
Distinguishing Between who and whom 106
Using who with a Form of the verb be
When Relative Pronouns May Be
108
Deleted 109
Indefinite Relative Pronouns 110
Interrogative Pronouns 112
Demonstrative Pronouns 115
Using Pronouns
Agreement in Number of Personal
122
Pronouns and Antecedents
Agreement in Gender of Personal
122
Pronouns and Antecedents
Agreement of a Pronoun and a
124
Compound Subject 126
Agreement Between Pronouns 129
Problems with Agreement in Gender 133
Problems in Pronoun Reference
Using Pronouns to Refer to a
136
General Idea 139
Pronouns in Double Subjects 142
Understanding Adjectives 148
Degrees of Comparison 149
Regular Comparison 150
Irregular Comparison 153
Adjectives Can Have Suffixes 155
A Description of Adjectives 158
Pronouns Used as Adjectives 160
Nouns Used as Adjectives 163
Articles and Determiners 165
The Noun Phrase 166
Using Adjectives 172
Placement of Adjectives 172
Problems with Degrees of Comparison 175
Adjectives Without Degree 176
Illogical Comparison 178
Troublesome Adjectives 180 .
Nonstandard Demonstratives 181
Understanding Adverbs 187
Adverb Suffixes 188
Regular Comparison 191
Other Types of Comparison 193
Three Ways to Describe Adverbs 196
Adverbs Without Degree 197
Intensifiers 197
Interrogative Adverbs 198
The Negative Adverb not 200
Using Adverbs
Distinguishing Between Adjectives
209
and Adverbs 209
378
Troublesome Adjective/Adverb Pairs 210
Recognizing Adverbs 216
Placement of Adverbs 219
Avoiding Double Negatives 223
Avoiding Nonstandard Adverb Usage 226
Understanding Prepositions 233
Compound Objects 235
Prepositional Phrases as Modifiers 235
Common Prepositions 237
Particles 238
Usinq Prepositions 245
Troublesome Prepositions 245
Avoiding Nonstandard Usage 249
Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions 254
Preposition or Adverb? 256
Placement of Prepositional Phrases
Using Prepositions at the End
259
of a Sentence 260
Understanding Conjunctions 266
Coordinating Conjunctions 266
Correlative Conjunctions 268
Subordinating Conjunctions
Placement of Subordinating
271
Conjunctions 276
Using Conjunctions
Replacing Conjunctions with
281
Punctuation
Conjunctions with Incomplete
281
Constructions 284
Understanding Interjections 290
Using Interjections 292
2. The Sentence 294
Definition 294
Sentence Parts 296
Subjects 296
Compound Subjects 298
Understood Subjects 299
Predicates 301
Compound Predicates
Another Look at Subjects and
302
Predicates
Problems in Finding the Simple
303
Subject 308
Sentences in Inverted Order
Prepositional phrases That Appear
308
to Contain Simple Subjects 310
Complements 312
Subject Complements 313
Predicate Adjectives 316
379
Predicate Nouns and Predicate
Pronouns 318
Direct objects 322
Separating Direct objects from
Subject Complements 327
Indirect Objects 329
Object Complements 333
Another Look at Complements 336
Transitive Verbs 338
Linking Verbs 338
Active and Passive Voice 341
A Test for Transitive Verbs 344
Uses of Passive Voice 345
Sentence Patterns 347
3. The Phrase 357
Definition 357
Verbals and Verbal Phrases 359
Gerunds 360
Gerund Phrases 362
Participles 365
Present and Past Participles 367
Participle Phrases 370
Infinitives 373
Infinitive Phrases 375
Subject of an Infinitive 378
Problems in Using Verbals and
Verbal Phrases 384
Using the Possessive Form Before
a Gerund 384
Using the Objective Form for the
Subject of an Infinitive 387
Using Commas with Nonessential
Participle Phrases 391
Appositives and Appositive Phrases 399
4. The Clause 407
Two Types of Clauses 407
Distinguishing Between Clauses
and Phrases 410
Clauses Act as a Unit 414
Transitional Adverbs 418
Subordinate Clauses Acting as
a Part of Speech 422
Adjective Clauses 423
Relative Pronouns 425
Relative Adjectives and Relative
Adverbs 429
380
Deleting Relative Pronouns 430
Punctuating Adjective Clauses 433
Adverb Clauses 438
Subordinating Conjunctions 441
Elliptical Adverb Clauses 444
Punctuating Adverb Clauses 446
Noun Clauses 451
Words That Introduce Noun Clauses 454
Four Sentence Structures 456
Simple Sentences 456
Compound Sentences 457
Complex Sentences
Compound-Complex Sentences
457
5. Punctuation 467
Four Basic Purposes of Punctuation 468
The Comma 469
The Semicolon 484
The Colon 488
The Dash 492
The Hyphen 494
The Apostrophe 500
The Period 504
The Question Mark 508
The Exclamation Point 509
Quotation Marks 511
Single Quotation Marks 514
Paired Commas 516
Paired Dashes 523
Parentheses 526
Writing Dialogue 530
Another Look at Punctuation 533
Placement of Marks Used Together 544
The Comma and Paired Commas 548
The Semicolon 549
The Colon 550
The Apostrophe and the Hyphen 550
The Dash and Paired Dashes 551
The Period
The Question Mark and the
553
Exclamation Point
Quotation Marks and Single
555
Quotation Marks 558
Parentheses 561
A Punctuation Grid 563
6. Capitalization
Capitalization That Sets Off Groups
571
of Words 571
381
Capitalization That Sets Off Single
Words 576
A Summary of Capitalization of
Proper Nouns 591
7. English Spelling 596
The Structure of the Spelling
System 596
Commonly Misspelled Words 598
Spelling Rules 618
3. Language Change and Variation 637
How Languages Change 637
The Beginnings of English 640
From Middle English to Modern English 643
How Language Varies 648
Regional Dialects 653
Major Dialect Areas of the
United States 649
Social Dialects 653
The Standard Dialect of English 654
Other Dialects of English 656
The Navajo Dialect of English 656
The Spanish Dialect of English 661
Personal Dialects 664
One Way to Look at Language 665
Formal to Informal Language 666
Usage 671
Colloquial Usage
671
Slang Usage 672
Jargon 676
The Cliche 677
9. The Word Stock of English 681
Signs and Symbols 681
Words Are Symbols 684
How Words Mean 687
How Nouns Mean 690
Concrete and Abstract Nouns 690
Specific and General Nouns 692
Where Words Come From 695
Borrowed Words 695
Latin Influences on English 696
Scandinavian Influences on English 698
French Influences on English 699
New Words, Made-Up Words 702
382
The Meaning of Names 705
First Names 705
Last Names 707
10. Listening to the Spoken Word 713
Listening 713
The Importance of Listening 714
Developing Listening Skills 715
Listening for Good Reasoning 716
Listening to Oral Directions 719
Listening to Public Speakers 722
Listening for Organization in
a Speech 725
383

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets