Your two priorities in fixing this problem are, as I understand them, 1) to correct students' essays and 2) to have students "deliberately" practice. Both of these are fine if your first priority is simply to first TEACH THEM WHAT CONSTITUTES A SENTENCE. Once again (as with phonics), the whole concept of simply instructing the students seems to have gone out the window in favor of somehow having them assimilate the concepts. What is this insane prejudice against simply TELLING THEM BEFOREHAND what works? When my elder daughter was in fourth grade, my wife was warning me that there was something terribly wrong with her capabilities; I thought my wife must be exaggerating. Finally, to humor her, I sat my daughter down at a table and asked her some basic questions that I thought a fourth-grader ought to know. She couldn't answer any of them. Exasperated, I finally gave her a blank sheet of paper and asked her to write a paragraph on any subject of her choice. She responded by asking what a "paragraph" is. I explained that a paragraph is a series of sentences expressing some idea. She responded by asking what a "sentence" is. Long story short, neither of our daughters ever saw the inside of a public school again. We home-schooled them. I searched in frustration for a curriculum that would teach grammar in a logical, coherent way. Finally I discovered EASY GRAMMAR, whose logical ground-up approach is unlike anything else I've ever seen. UNTIL WE START EXPLICITLY EXPLAINING THINGS TO STUDENTS in logical sequences that they can actually comprehend, we will be facing endless failure and endless hand-wringing, like this article for example. The fact that it had to be written at all, together with the fact that it does not propose EXPLICIT, DIRECT INSTRUCTION as the solution, suggests that we won't be winning this battle any time soon.
Well I am happy to hear that and I'm sorry if I got the wrong impression. To me, your article seems to mention the notion of direct instruction more as an afterthought in the final paragraph. Had I written a similar complaint, my first remedy (front and center and perhaps in all-caps) would be: Logically and systematically teach the students beforehand using the most successful, graduated curriculum you can find, before expecting them to know the material.
DI has been eschewed by establishment educational circles for decades. When I read something by anyone with ed credentials, I presume that person is prejudiced against it unless that person is very upfront about emphasizing how great it is.
Yes, I think that's what I assumed -- since there are no tiles with periods. A number of people have opined that the third error is that there IS no error, and maybe that's right. But talk about "tricksy"!
These are interesting ideas. I still think that the fundamental problem with students and writing begins with the problem of students and reading: without having read much prose from skilled professional writers, students don't have a template for how to construct their own writing, even at the sentence level, much less at the level of an essay. And it goes beyond just showing students a series of writing models before giving an assignment. They really have to have internalized a lot of great writing through their own reading before they can write well themselves.
I noticed in my last few years of teaching that there were more and more students (high school juniors) who came into my class hating reading and writing. I always had students who were indifferent to it, but I believe that the constant drilling for test prep in the earlier grades took away any vestige of love that our more reluctant learners might once have possessed. So the focus on testing writing, especially high-stakes testing, however well-intentioned, has been mainly counter-productive.
Can't wait for the next book, Natalie! Reminds me of a story I read about Bob Dylan. Someone complimented him on his then-current album and he said, "Wait until you hear the next one." The person asked him what that album would be about and Dylan replied, "I don't know. I haven't started writing it yet."
I had read the post from Daisy Christodoulou, and I was very interested to see your take on this. It's a little hard to interpret her data, because it was based on Year 5 students, and it's not clear what the program is for students in her system. Also, the NAEP data that you refer to is from 2011, so it's more than 10 years old. However, I'm happy to agree that only a small fraction of students can reliably identify correctly structured sentences.
I also agree that formal abstract syntactic definitions of sentence structure usually aren't very helpful. While these can seem to be accurate and precise, in practice most people don't think that way, and providing a technical explanation like this usually doesn't translate into improved performance. If students are going to develop an ability to discern correct sentences, then it will have to be by developing a strong intuition, or as you put it they will have to get it at "more or less a gut level". Fair enough.
But you haven't in any way provided any reason for why your proposed solutions -- correcting errors and deliberate practice -- would improve this. After all, students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, and if they don't develop an intuition for grammatical correctness on that basis then it's hard to see why a few classroom exercises would have much of a difference. You don't even try to give any justification for effectiveness of correcting errors, and the only link you have for deliberate practice is to a Wikipedia article, and that doesn't specifically address the issue of teaching sentence structure.
Don't get me wrong -- I think correcting errors and deliberate practice are good things! I'm not arguing against those methods! But I suspect that the students who develop a strong understanding of sentence structure with these methods are going to be pretty much the same students who would have learned it anyway.
Alas, the most recent NAEP writing test was in fact in 2011, and they're not planning to give that test again until 2030. And yet we get tests in reading every 2 years! Anyway, I have no reason to think the data has improved since 2011, and it might well have gotten worse.
I hope that helps. Also, this method isn't just about "a few classroom exercises." Ideally, it will be done across the curriculum, and it's much more intensive than that. We're getting more and more evidence that it works -- and not just with "the same students who would have learned it anyway." Far from it. Here's another article that might be helpful, although it's 11 years old now:
Hi Theodore, I think I would disagree with this point:
"After all, students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, and if they don't develop an intuition for grammatical correctness on that basis then it's hard to see why a few classroom exercises would have much of a difference."
Exposure is not the same as instruction. The standard written code is an artificial invention of humanity - it isn't natural and we can't expect that being exposed to it will mean students will automatically pick it up. In some ways, the similarity of writing to speaking and listening is misleading. Speaking and listening are natural and we are evolved to pick them up from exposure. That's not true of biologically secondary skills like reading and writing. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520802392208
I'm not sure students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, especially not in reading. If they had, it would be a big help. There are a lot of ways to get around doing actual reading in schools today, and that includes even most colleges.
If students are in fact exposed to "hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life," they STILL might not "develop an intuition" for grammatically correct sentences. I do think being a reader helps with writing ability, but I don't think it's always enough (and I believe there's evidence that you can be a strong reader but not a strong writer, although I can't cite it off the top of my head).
One of the 10th-graders I tutored in writing years ago told me she read a book a week, and I believed her. She was very bright. Her writing was definitely better than the other three students I was tutoring. But she still thought "Although I drank the glass of water" was a complete sentence.
This reminds me of an exchange a had recently with a couple of friends who both grew up in the South and who have strong Southern accents to this day. They told me they weren't aware they had Southern accents until they were adults and moved to the North. I asked them if they noticed that the people speaking on TV and in the movies spoke differently from the way they did, and they said they hadn't. I don't know if there's really an analogy there to reading complete sentences but still not understanding what it takes to write one, but it strikes me as being somewhat parallel.
I think what constitutes a complete sentence depends on text genre. We teachers refer to 'complete sentences' they are thinking of formal written English (I don't know if there is another received term for this). I try to teach students that this is the form of English you will be expected to use in an email to your boss or on a cover letter. I got this idea from seeing another teacher teach tweets etc. as 'incorrect', and feeling this missed something. We all use minor sentences etc. in when writing SMS messages etc., and most of us would find it a bit odd if a good friend insisted on always texting us in complete sentences.
I think this distinction also helps to avoid upholding one form of English as 'correct' and seeing other varieties as wrong.
Dang trying to type this on my phone. I’ll try again.
The best explanation of a sentence I ever read was in Steven Pinker’s The Language instinct. To paraphrase somewhat:
A sentence is the fewest number of words that contains a subject with a predicate that makes a claim about the subject that one can argue the truth or falsity of.
“He left” makes a claim about “He” we could argue the truth or falsity of, therefore it’s a complete sentence.
“When he left the room” does not finish making a claim we could argue the truth or falsity of, therefore it’s a fragment, despite having more words than “He left.”
When I explained it this way to my 8th graders, they got it.
Your two priorities in fixing this problem are, as I understand them, 1) to correct students' essays and 2) to have students "deliberately" practice. Both of these are fine if your first priority is simply to first TEACH THEM WHAT CONSTITUTES A SENTENCE. Once again (as with phonics), the whole concept of simply instructing the students seems to have gone out the window in favor of somehow having them assimilate the concepts. What is this insane prejudice against simply TELLING THEM BEFOREHAND what works? When my elder daughter was in fourth grade, my wife was warning me that there was something terribly wrong with her capabilities; I thought my wife must be exaggerating. Finally, to humor her, I sat my daughter down at a table and asked her some basic questions that I thought a fourth-grader ought to know. She couldn't answer any of them. Exasperated, I finally gave her a blank sheet of paper and asked her to write a paragraph on any subject of her choice. She responded by asking what a "paragraph" is. I explained that a paragraph is a series of sentences expressing some idea. She responded by asking what a "sentence" is. Long story short, neither of our daughters ever saw the inside of a public school again. We home-schooled them. I searched in frustration for a curriculum that would teach grammar in a logical, coherent way. Finally I discovered EASY GRAMMAR, whose logical ground-up approach is unlike anything else I've ever seen. UNTIL WE START EXPLICITLY EXPLAINING THINGS TO STUDENTS in logical sequences that they can actually comprehend, we will be facing endless failure and endless hand-wringing, like this article for example. The fact that it had to be written at all, together with the fact that it does not propose EXPLICIT, DIRECT INSTRUCTION as the solution, suggests that we won't be winning this battle any time soon.
I do propose explicit, direct instruction. Please see the book I co-authored, The Writing Revolution.
Well I am happy to hear that and I'm sorry if I got the wrong impression. To me, your article seems to mention the notion of direct instruction more as an afterthought in the final paragraph. Had I written a similar complaint, my first remedy (front and center and perhaps in all-caps) would be: Logically and systematically teach the students beforehand using the most successful, graduated curriculum you can find, before expecting them to know the material.
You must not know much about Wexler’s educational philosophy. She is very much a DI promoter.
DI has been eschewed by establishment educational circles for decades. When I read something by anyone with ed credentials, I presume that person is prejudiced against it unless that person is very upfront about emphasizing how great it is.
Understandable. I agree with you 100%
The third error is that there is no third error. But if that is the third error, then there isn't a third error. Paradox!
This gets my vote.
1)extra e in the word three
2) missing r in word error
3) the third error is that there is no error - it’s a complete sentence.
Yes, we can't expect periods when using Scrabble tiles.
Yes, I think that's what I assumed -- since there are no tiles with periods. A number of people have opined that the third error is that there IS no error, and maybe that's right. But talk about "tricksy"!
These are interesting ideas. I still think that the fundamental problem with students and writing begins with the problem of students and reading: without having read much prose from skilled professional writers, students don't have a template for how to construct their own writing, even at the sentence level, much less at the level of an essay. And it goes beyond just showing students a series of writing models before giving an assignment. They really have to have internalized a lot of great writing through their own reading before they can write well themselves.
I noticed in my last few years of teaching that there were more and more students (high school juniors) who came into my class hating reading and writing. I always had students who were indifferent to it, but I believe that the constant drilling for test prep in the earlier grades took away any vestige of love that our more reluctant learners might once have possessed. So the focus on testing writing, especially high-stakes testing, however well-intentioned, has been mainly counter-productive.
Can't wait for the next book, Natalie! Reminds me of a story I read about Bob Dylan. Someone complimented him on his then-current album and he said, "Wait until you hear the next one." The person asked him what that album would be about and Dylan replied, "I don't know. I haven't started writing it yet."
I had read the post from Daisy Christodoulou, and I was very interested to see your take on this. It's a little hard to interpret her data, because it was based on Year 5 students, and it's not clear what the program is for students in her system. Also, the NAEP data that you refer to is from 2011, so it's more than 10 years old. However, I'm happy to agree that only a small fraction of students can reliably identify correctly structured sentences.
I also agree that formal abstract syntactic definitions of sentence structure usually aren't very helpful. While these can seem to be accurate and precise, in practice most people don't think that way, and providing a technical explanation like this usually doesn't translate into improved performance. If students are going to develop an ability to discern correct sentences, then it will have to be by developing a strong intuition, or as you put it they will have to get it at "more or less a gut level". Fair enough.
But you haven't in any way provided any reason for why your proposed solutions -- correcting errors and deliberate practice -- would improve this. After all, students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, and if they don't develop an intuition for grammatical correctness on that basis then it's hard to see why a few classroom exercises would have much of a difference. You don't even try to give any justification for effectiveness of correcting errors, and the only link you have for deliberate practice is to a Wikipedia article, and that doesn't specifically address the issue of teaching sentence structure.
Don't get me wrong -- I think correcting errors and deliberate practice are good things! I'm not arguing against those methods! But I suspect that the students who develop a strong understanding of sentence structure with these methods are going to be pretty much the same students who would have learned it anyway.
Okay, several things:
Alas, the most recent NAEP writing test was in fact in 2011, and they're not planning to give that test again until 2030. And yet we get tests in reading every 2 years! Anyway, I have no reason to think the data has improved since 2011, and it might well have gotten worse.
On the research:
I wish there was more good research on writing, particularly at the sentence level. I've written about that here: https://nataliewexler.substack.com/p/the-puzzling-gap-in-research-on-writing.
But we do have some! If you'd like to see the concept of deliberate practice applied to writing, check out this article, which describes some excellent results: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1365480216643209.
Also, this report on writing summarizes the evidence for sentence-combining (and the evidence that teaching grammar in the abstract wouldn't work as well, by the way): https://www.carnegie.org/publications/writing-next-effective-strategies-to-improve-writing-of-adolescents-in-middle-and-high-schools/
I've also written about one study of teaching sentence construction (and another on outlining) here: https://nataliewexler.substack.com/p/to-improve-students-writing-teach
I hope that helps. Also, this method isn't just about "a few classroom exercises." Ideally, it will be done across the curriculum, and it's much more intensive than that. We're getting more and more evidence that it works -- and not just with "the same students who would have learned it anyway." Far from it. Here's another article that might be helpful, although it's 11 years old now:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/10/the-writing-revolution/309090/
Hi Theodore, I think I would disagree with this point:
"After all, students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, and if they don't develop an intuition for grammatical correctness on that basis then it's hard to see why a few classroom exercises would have much of a difference."
Exposure is not the same as instruction. The standard written code is an artificial invention of humanity - it isn't natural and we can't expect that being exposed to it will mean students will automatically pick it up. In some ways, the similarity of writing to speaking and listening is misleading. Speaking and listening are natural and we are evolved to pick them up from exposure. That's not true of biologically secondary skills like reading and writing. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520802392208
I'm not sure students are exposed to hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life, especially not in reading. If they had, it would be a big help. There are a lot of ways to get around doing actual reading in schools today, and that includes even most colleges.
If students are in fact exposed to "hundreds of thousands of correct sentences in everyday life," they STILL might not "develop an intuition" for grammatically correct sentences. I do think being a reader helps with writing ability, but I don't think it's always enough (and I believe there's evidence that you can be a strong reader but not a strong writer, although I can't cite it off the top of my head).
One of the 10th-graders I tutored in writing years ago told me she read a book a week, and I believed her. She was very bright. Her writing was definitely better than the other three students I was tutoring. But she still thought "Although I drank the glass of water" was a complete sentence.
This reminds me of an exchange a had recently with a couple of friends who both grew up in the South and who have strong Southern accents to this day. They told me they weren't aware they had Southern accents until they were adults and moved to the North. I asked them if they noticed that the people speaking on TV and in the movies spoke differently from the way they did, and they said they hadn't. I don't know if there's really an analogy there to reading complete sentences but still not understanding what it takes to write one, but it strikes me as being somewhat parallel.
In answer to your final question about the title graphic: 1) extra e in threee, 2) missing r in eror, and 3) no punctuation mark at the end.
Yes, I missed the lack of a punctuation mark! But within minutes, several readers with sharper eyes than mine had caught it. Mea culpa!
No punctuation!
I think what constitutes a complete sentence depends on text genre. We teachers refer to 'complete sentences' they are thinking of formal written English (I don't know if there is another received term for this). I try to teach students that this is the form of English you will be expected to use in an email to your boss or on a cover letter. I got this idea from seeing another teacher teach tweets etc. as 'incorrect', and feeling this missed something. We all use minor sentences etc. in when writing SMS messages etc., and most of us would find it a bit odd if a good friend insisted on always texting us in complete sentences.
I think this distinction also helps to avoid upholding one form of English as 'correct' and seeing other varieties as wrong.
I assume the third error is the lack of a full stop.
There is no fullstop.
In my opinion, the best explanation of I sentence
Dang trying to type this on my phone. I’ll try again.
The best explanation of a sentence I ever read was in Steven Pinker’s The Language instinct. To paraphrase somewhat:
A sentence is the fewest number of words that contains a subject with a predicate that makes a claim about the subject that one can argue the truth or falsity of.
“He left” makes a claim about “He” we could argue the truth or falsity of, therefore it’s a complete sentence.
“When he left the room” does not finish making a claim we could argue the truth or falsity of, therefore it’s a fragment, despite having more words than “He left.”
When I explained it this way to my 8th graders, they got it.
Why are you trying to avoid Twitter aka X?