Sentence Combining: Improving Student Writing w/o Formal Grammar Instruction, Frank O'Hare, 1971
Sentence-combining: a type of pedagogy involving extensive, sequenced practice of specially formulated print-based exercises through which a student is said to acquire dexterity in writing complex sentence structures.
Research Questions:
1. Would 7th graders who practiced a new kind of sentence combining that was in no way dependent on their formal knowledge of grammar write in a way that is syntactically different than similar students not exposed to such combining?
2. If there are syntactic differences in their writing, could these differences be characterized as differences in maturity?
3. Would the students who completed such exercises write compostiions judged better in overall quality?
4. What are the curricular implications of such findings?
Braddock (1963) declares: "the teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38).
What is transformational grammar?
Bateman and Zidonis' study concludes that students who study transformational grammar end up writing sentences that have fewer errors and are more complex syntactically than students who do not. A significant finding.
Mellon questioned the validity of thr B-Z study because the greatest changes in the experimental group were made by only 4 students.
The Mellon Study
Mellon completed a similar study, although rather than focusing on error reduction, he examined the increase in syntactic complexity. He suggested that it was the sentence-combining practice and NOT the study of grammar that had an effect on the students' writing behaviors.
Sample - 247 white native American students, from urban, suburban and private institutions.
Experimental Group: year-long course in transformational grammar that included a large amount of sentence-combining.
Control Group: course in traditional grammar
Writing Sample: 9 compositions, during first four and and last four weeks of school. Mellon selected first 10 T-Units (principal clause and any subordinate clause or nonclausal strcuture attached or embedded in it) from each composition.
Mellon's study showed syntactic fluency improvements, but does that necessarily mean improvements in rhetorical ability?
Research Questions:
1. Would 7th graders who practiced a new kind of sentence combining that was in no way dependent on their formal knowledge of grammar write in a way that is syntactically different than similar students not exposed to such combining?
2. If there are syntactic differences in their writing, could these differences be characterized as differences in maturity?
3. Would the students who completed such exercises write compostiions judged better in overall quality?
4. What are the curricular implications of such findings?
Braddock (1963) declares: "the teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in actual composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing" (37-38).
What is transformational grammar?
Bateman and Zidonis' study concludes that students who study transformational grammar end up writing sentences that have fewer errors and are more complex syntactically than students who do not. A significant finding.
Mellon questioned the validity of thr B-Z study because the greatest changes in the experimental group were made by only 4 students.
The Mellon Study
Mellon completed a similar study, although rather than focusing on error reduction, he examined the increase in syntactic complexity. He suggested that it was the sentence-combining practice and NOT the study of grammar that had an effect on the students' writing behaviors.
Sample - 247 white native American students, from urban, suburban and private institutions.
Experimental Group: year-long course in transformational grammar that included a large amount of sentence-combining.
Control Group: course in traditional grammar
Writing Sample: 9 compositions, during first four and and last four weeks of school. Mellon selected first 10 T-Units (principal clause and any subordinate clause or nonclausal strcuture attached or embedded in it) from each composition.
Mellon's study showed syntactic fluency improvements, but does that necessarily mean improvements in rhetorical ability?
posted by CA Lund at 8:26 PM
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