what's a paragraph; was: Active versus passive (WAS Displays vers us Appears-Which One?)

["RUBOTTOM, AL" <ARUBOTTOM -at- SENSORMATIC -dot- COM>]

your students were more correct than you were... a paragraph by definition
is the marking up or formatting of sentences into a group [typically
indented!] , not the conceptual framework itself of organizing content --
that's what teachers [yup, I'm a former teacher too] impose on their
charges. it's not a bad idea, but it's pure theology to say every paragraph
must be written only in such-and-such a fashion...

the construct of writing a topic-sentence-themed paragraph is but one
concept of structure, borrowed from classical rhetoric I b'lieve, and it has
its place, but it's by no means the *only* way to organize or compose text,
thoughts, prose. good writing, like speech, can adopt many forms & formats.

orthodox expository writing benefits from organization, sure, but there's
room for lots of effective variations and deviations from that 'golden
rule.' 

when teaching writing/composition, I found it effective to build on
students' ability to 'speak' to the page and to build on what writing
fundamentally is, transcribed speech, and then improve it with
editing/feedback/rewrites.

the use of "Free writes" is much more productive in getting students
comfortable with and competent at the toolkit of wordsmithing than
emphasizing strict topic-sentence/paragraphing/outlining as the only way to
make sense in words.

the parallels with language learning are inevitable: all children learn
their native language and speak in complete utterances before being taught
any grammatical schema. 

thus, all students *can* learn to write [make speech into readable prosody]
if given technique & tools & enough latitude to channel their creativity
into various structures, paragraphs among them, sure.

what we TWs do is but one subset of expository writing and a necessarily
narrowly defined one at that.

> -----Original Message-----
> Kathi mentioned that her daughter didn't know what constituted a
> paragraph.
> 
> This reminds me of when I was teaching 4th grade. At the beginning of my
> first year, I asked incoming students a number of questions that were
> intended to gauge their understanding of the grammar and structure of
> English. When I asked if they knew what made a paragraph, the reply was
> shocking: You can tell if something's a paragraph because it's indented!
> They hadn't the vaguest idea _why_ paragraphs were indented, or why a
> certain group of five sentences made a paragraph, while another five did
> not.
> 
> 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Develop HTML-based Help with Macromedia Dreamweaver! (STC Discount.)
**NEW DATE/LOCATION!** January 16-17, 2001, New York, NY.
http://www.weisner.com/training/dreamweaver_help.htm or 800-646-9989.

Take XML and Tech Writing courses online!  Our instructor-led courses
(4-6 hrs/wk) give you "hands on" experience at your convenience. STC members
get 20% off!  http://www.online-learning.com/index.html.
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.