Sentence combining versus grammar study : two approaches to the study of sentence structure
Creators: name: Lee, Jean Celeste
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: This study, prompted by Frank O'Hare's NCTE Research Report No. 15, "Sentence Combining: Improving Student Writing Without Formal Grammar Instruction", was designed to compare the effects of two approaches toward the improvement of syntactic maturity in the free writing of grade ten students over a nine-month period. The experimental group studied certain aspects of traditional grammar, and after the necessary grammatical terminology was mastered, it was used to discuss the various ways of manipulating sentence structure to create more pleasing overall patterns and thereby enhance style. In the second approach, the control group, without formal instruction in grammar, practised sentence-combining problems encompassing a wide variety of syntactic structures. Both the experimental and the control groups also engaged in an intensive free writing program. Specifically, this research sought the answer to two questions. One, would the experimental-grammar group show more growth in syntactic maturity in their free writing than the control group, and two, would the experimental group write compositions that would be judged superior in overall quality to those of the control group? The sample used in this study consisted of fifty-six grade ten students attending a large urban secondary school. All of the thirty girls and twenty-six boys were from a similar upper middle class socioeconomic background and were almost all of average or better ability. The experimental class, with twenty-seven students, met in small group classes once a week for forty-minutes, as did the twenty-nine control group students. Both groups followed an identical curriculum in their regular middle group English classes, which met three times a week. Experimental and control groups did the same number of writing assignments not only in regular classes, but in small group, where, in addition to their work in syntactic structuring, they wrote: (1) three pre- and three post-test compositions on topics devised in parallel forms, with one in each mode given in early October, and the counterpart of each in early June; (2) a pre- and post-treatment writing of a passage on aluminum containing many short sentences which they were asked to write in a better way; and (3) approximately twenty-five free writing assignments over a period of seven months. In the four pieces of writing done in class at pre- and post-test times, the first ten T-Units in each, forty T-Units for each test time, were analyzed according to two factors of syntactic maturity, T-Unit length and clause length. As a result of the analyses of the data, it was concluded that the control group wrote compositions which were syntactically more mature than the compositions written by the experimental group. The control group wrote significantly longer clauses, and as a result, longer T-Units than did the experimental group. When compared to the rate of normal growth established by Hunt, the control students showed evidence in their free writing and in the aluminum passage, of a level of syntactic maturity, on both indices, equal to or above that of superior adults. When nine experienced English teachers were asked to judge the overall quality of twenty-seven pairs of experimental and control compositions that had been matched for sex, I.Q. and ability in English, as well as mode of discourse, there appeared to be no significant difference between the quality of the writing of the control and experimental group. It was concluded, therefore, that the differential gains in syntactic maturity of the control group were not a determining factor in the markers' judgments, which were based equally upon five criteria of ideas, organization, sentence structure, vocabulary and style.