A S T R A T E G Y FOR TEACHING W R I T I N G
to use the material in communicative situa-
tions.
Our students have so often been stifled by
what Anderson terms as the “closed system”
of education that prevails in most American
schools-a system that is concerned with “the
sorting, classifying, and cataloging of attics
full of useless, unlovely, an d undiscarded
psychic antiques.”47 If the student shows any
creativity or originality, or attempts to rear-
range material, he is wrong or has failed. T o
permit this attitude to dominate the foreign
language curriculum as it has in the past, will
mean a continued decline in the popularity of
A Strategy for Teaching Writing
THOMAS
C. COOPER,
University of Georgia
URING T H E LAST few years many of
D the basic assumptions in the field of
second language learning and teaching have
been re-examined, and it behooves us to re-
consider the role of writing in our programs.
In the recent past writing has, at best, been
regarded as a handmaiden of the other three
skills.‘ For example, foreign language teach-
ers have always been aware of the psycho-
logical element in assigning written home-
work to reinforce oral practice done in class.
Students tend to take assignments of this
nature more seriously than they do home-
work that does not involve any writing.
Chastain, however, goes further in his as-
sessment of the importance of writing. He
points out that since writing is a productive
skill it is more closely related to speaking
than to reading or listening. I n both speaking
and writing success depends on the student’s
ability to encode messages which carry thought
and meaning. In both skills the student must
activate a passive knowledge of structure and
vocabulary which was developed in listening
and reading.2 Furthermore, speaking and writ-
ing require more creative effort than listening
25 1
our discipline. If, on the other hand, we de-
velop a curriculum based on the creative na-
ture and communicative purpose of language,
we can offer students a unique learning ex-
perience-a learning experience which en-
courages them to experiment and challenges
their cognitive abilities. We have something
to offer all students not just those who desire
to become language specialists. Even if a stu-
dent does not attain fluency in the language,
he can sharpen his intellectual powers
through foreign language study a t any level.
“Anderson, p. 55.
and reading, for as transformational gram-
marians have amply demonstrated in the last
decade, most spoken and written syntactic
units are novel in nature and are not mere
reproductions of memorized patterns. Indeed,
since the processes are so similar, there may
be a great deal of transfer from speaking to
writing and from writing to speaking. It
stands to reason that writing ought to receive
its due share of emphasis and not be relegated
to the position of fourth-place in skill de-
velopment.
Recent descriptive studies in both first and
second language learning have concentrated
on the acquisition of written syntax and have
had important pedagogical implications for
’ Wilga M. Rivers, Teaching Foreign-Language
Skills (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1968), p. 241; Guenter G. Pfister, “Written Assign-
ments-Valid Reinforcers of Speaking and Under-
standing,’’ Foreign Language Annals, Vol. 7, No. 4
(May 1974), pp. 421-424.
’Kenneth Chastain, The Deuelopment of Moderr-
Language Skills: Theory to Practice (Philadelphia :
The Center for Curriculum Development, Inc., 197I ) ,
pp. 220-221.
252 T H E M O D E R N LANGUAGE JOURNAL.
teaching writinga3It is appropriate to sum-
marize briefly a few of these studies before
presenting a new strategy for teaching writ-
ing to foreign language students.
In 1965 Hunt presented the findings of a
study on freely produced language of differ-
ent levels of American schoolchildren. I n the
course of a semester each subject submitted
1,000 words of writing. T h e subject matter
of the composition was not controlled. T h e
writing samples were then analyzed in two
ways. First, Hunt calculated five clause-to-
sentence indices which included average
clause length in words, the ratio of subordi-
nate clauses per main clause, average T-unit
length in words, the ratio of coordinate
clauses per sentence, and average sentence
length in words. With the exception of the
coordinate ratio, Hunt discovered through
statistical analysis that there were highly sig-
nificant differences in the complexity of writ-
ten syntax by subjects at all levels.‘
T h e most statistically powerful measure of
syntactic complexity turned out to be the
minimal terminable unit (T-unit) which “is
exactly one main clause plus whatever sub-
ordinate clauses are attached to that main
clause.”5 In his second phase of analysis, Hunt
measured by the application of transforma-
tional grammar principles the occurrence of
sentence-embedding transformations in T-
units. He concluded that the average length
of T-unit correlated closely with the age of
the writer, for its length increased as the
writer matured. Hunt convincingly demon-
strated that the significant increases in T-unit
length were mainly due to the subjects’ in-
creasing ability to embed sentences.e Subse-
quent studies by Hunt and other investigators
who employed many of his research techni-
ques have also empirically demonstrated that
the development of syntactic maturity in pri-
mary language learning is due, in large part,
to an increase in embedding processes.7
One of the studies following Hunt’s initial
work is interesting with regard to the develop-
ment of oral fluency in English as a native
language. O’Donnell, Griffin, and Norris,
utilizing many of Hunt’s procedures, analyzed
a corpus of oral and written samples from
schoolchildren in kindergarten and grades 1,
2, 3, 5 , and 7. In grades 3, 5, and 7 written
samples were compared with oral samples.
T h e researchers discovered that T-unit length
can be used as an index of oral as well as
written language complexity.*
In two studies with students of German
and French as foreign languages, similar
trends in written syntactic development were
observed in second language acquisition. In
1972 Cooper collected a corpus of freely pro-
duced writing by four levels of American
college students of German. T h e subjects in
the four levels consisted of sophomores, juni-
ors, seniors, and graduate students, respec-
tively. Analysis was undertaken in order (1)
to determine whether significant differences
in the use of selected embedding transforma-
tions existed between levels; and (2) to test
the validity of the Hunt method of measur-
J. C. Mellon, Transformational Sentence-Com-
bining: A Method for Enhancing the Development
of Syntactic Fluency in English Composition, Na-
tional Council of Teachers of English Research Re-
port No. 10 (Champaign, Illinois : National Council
of Teachers of English, 1969); Frank OHare, Sen-
tence-Combining: Improving Student Writing With-
out Formal Grammar Instruction, National Council
of Teachers of English Research Report No. 15
(Champaign, Illinois : National Council of Teachers
of English, 1973); Judy Akin, “Enhancing the Syn-
tactic Fluency of Beginning Foreign Language Learn-
ers Through Sentence-Combining Practice,” ( unpub-
lished Ed.D. dissertation, The University of Georgia,
1975).
‘ Kellogg W. Hunt, Grammatical Structures Writ-
ten at Three Grade Levels, National Council of
Teachers of English Research Report No. 3 (Cham-
paign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1965), pp. 23, 25.
‘K.W. Hunt, “Recent Measures in Syntactic De-
velopment,’’ in Readings in Applied Transformational
Grammar, edited by Mark Lester (New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1970), p. 197.
Hunt, Grammatical Structures, pp. 89-92.
‘Roy C. O’Donnell, William J. Griffin, and Ray-
mond C. Norris, Syntax of Kindergarten and Ele-
mentary School Children: A Transformational Analy-
sis, National Council of Teachers of English Research
Report No. 8 (Champaign, Illinois: National Coun-
cil of Teachers of English, 1967); K. W. Hunt,
Syntactic Maturity in Schoolchildren and Adults,
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development, Serial No. 134, Vol. 35, No. 1 (Chi-
cago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970).
‘O’Donnell et al., Syntax of Kindergarten and
Elementary School Children, p. 95.
 A STRATEGY FOR TErlCHING W R I T I N G
ing syntactic maturity when applied to the
writing of second language learners. Cooper
found that Hunt’s method could be success-
fully applied, for significant increases in em-
bedding were discovered between level^.^
Monroe’s study with French students at the
undergraduate and graduate levels represents
further application of this kind of investiga-
tion. Instead of allowing his subjects to write
on a variety of themes, Monroe developed a
rewrite instrument consisting of a number
of logically related kernel sentences in French
which the college students were asked to re-
write in a better style. He, too, found signifi-
cant monotonic increases in embedding be-
tween levels to be a characteristic of acquisi-
tion of written syntax of the second lan-
guage.l0 In addition, Monroe noticed that his
subjects at the various levels used syntactic
patterns of a comparable degree of complexity
as Cooper’s, which may indicate that foreign
language learners progress through similar
stages of development as they acquire ability
in handling syntactic patterns of the target
language.”
In short, there is strong empirical evidence
which indicates that native speakers of En-
glish and adult students of at least two foreign
languages eventually learn how to produce
more syntactically complex T-units. An im-
portant question to pose is whether this pro-
cess can be accelerated through a different kind
of teaching strategy for writing. There is
convincing evidence that native language
skills can be dramatically improved. Several
studies have demonstrated that through ma-
nipulatory language practice involving sen-
tence combining exercises, English speakers
were able to increase significantly their syn-
tactic fluency and level of syntactic maturity
when compared to groups of students taught
in more traditional language classrooms.12
Frank O’Hare investigated the efficacy of
sen tence-combining practice by native speak-
ers of American English. More specifically,
O’Hare was interested in measuring “the
effect of written and oral sentence-combining
on the free writing of a seventh grade ex-
perimental group. T h e experimental group
was given intensive practice in combining
groups of kernel statements, by addition and
253
deletion, into single sentences which were
structurally more complex than those students
would normally be expected to write.”13 Al-
though the exercises were based on transfor-
mational theory, the students were not ex-
posed to technical grammar terminology.
Pre- and post-test compositions were writ-
ten by the experimental students and by a
comparable group of control students. Each
student’s compositions were analyzed accord-
ing to six factors of syntactic maturity: words
per T-unit; clauses per T-unit; words per
clause; and noun, adverb, and adjective clause
ernbeddings per 100 T-units. O’Hare found
that students in the experimental group ex-
perienced growth at the .001 level of signi-
ficance on all six factors of syntactic maturity.
Stated another way, when the data from
O’Hare’s students were compared with the
data gathered by Hu n t and other investiga-
tors, students in the control group wrote as
average seventh graders, while the experimen-
tal students wrote at a level of syntactic ma-
turity beyond that of average eighth graders.14
Akin recently tackled the question of
whether or not syntactic development of sec-
6nd language learners can be accelerated. She
conducted an experiment designed to deter-
mine if “sentence-combining practice in-
creases the rate of growth of [written] syntac-
tic maturity of first year high school students
learning German as a foreign language.”’6
’Thomas C. Cooper, “Measuring Written Syntac-
tic Patterns of Second Language Learners of Ger-
man,” Journal of Educational Research, Vol. 69,
No. 5 (January 1976), pp. 176-83.
James Monroe, “Measuring and Enhancing Syn-
tactic Fluency in French,” French Review, Vol. 48,
No. 6 (May 1975), pp. 1023-1031.
“Ibid.
” Mellon, Transformational Sentence-Combining;
O’Hare, Sentence-Combining; Warren E. Combs,
Further Effects of Sentence-Combining Practice on
Writing Ability, Studies in Language Education, Re-
port No. 16, Department of Language Education,
The University of Georgia, 1975.
Frank O’Hare, “The Effect of Sentence-Combin-
ing Practice Not Dependent on Formal Knowledge
of a Grammar on the Writing of Seventh Graders,”
(unpublished dissertation, The Florida State Univer-
sity, 1971), p. 122.
“Ibid., pp. 123-124.
Is Akin, “Enhancing the Syntactic Fluency of Be-
ginning Foreign Language Learners,” p. 53.
254 THE MODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL

Sentence-combining materials based on a com- lectual effort is required before students are
monly used high school text were developed able to internalize syntactic patterns of the
for the experimental groups. Students in the target language. For this reason, the writing
control groups followed the writing exercises strategy to be outlined below is designed to
that were outlined in the text. Pre- and post- introduce the student gradually and in a
test writing samples were analyzed according very structured fashion to the concept of
to Hunt’s clause-to-sentence indices, and dif- sentence-combining.
ferences in the means of four of these indices T h e new writing strategy utilizes three dif-
-sentence length, clause length, T-unit ferent instructional techniques which are ap-
length, and coordination ratio-proved to be plicable to any foreign language. Exercises
significant.1” Akin’s investigation offers evi- based on the first technique are designed to
dence that sentence-combining practice does give the student systematic practice in per-
promote the development of written syntactic forming selected sentence-embedding trans-
fluency in second language learners of high formations.1’ T h e student will hear, for ex-
school age. ample, two kernel sentences and then be
T h e investigations by Hunt and O’Donnell asked to combine them using a specific con-
and those by Cooper and Monroe have clear-
l y shown that T-unit lengthening and sen- ’‘ Ibid., p. 90.
tence lengthening are quantifiable character- Only the relative “who” and the subordinating
istics of mature writing of first and second conjunction “because” are used in the example exer-
language learners. In writing samples the cise. The teacher would need to construct additional
lengthening process can be thought of as exercises using the other main sentence-embedding
transformations which are listed below. Most foreign
sentence-combining or sentence-embedding languages have constructions equivalent to the En-
whereby two or more kernel sentences are glish examples.
joined to a main clause through transforma- I. Nominal structures.
tions to subordinate clauses or subclausal A. Noun plus the big dog.
structures. Several experimental studies with adjective :
American schoolchildren and Akin’s study B. Noun plus his coat
possessive : the coat of the man
with high school students of German have the man’s coat
indicated that written syntactic maturity or C. Noun plus the man who drank
fluency can be dramatically accelerated by relative: beer
sentence-combining practice. Foreign lan- D. Noun plus the book on the table
guage teachers can profit from this body of prepositional
phrase :
established research and should explore more E. Noun plus the laughing child
thoroughly the effect of sentence-combining participle:
practice on written syntax of second language F. Noun plus Henry the king
learners by developing a new strategy for appositive :
teaching writing which would employ sen- G. Noun clause: he thinks that he saw
a thief
tence-combining techniques. H. Gerund phrase: running is good for the
Although there appear to be close parallels heart
between the first and second language acqui- 11. Adverbial structures.
sition studies summarized above, foreign lan- A. Time: when he left
guage teachers cannot duplicate the processes B. Manner: he lied like the devil
C. Place: the house where she
of primary language learning in their classes. lives
There are significant differences between first D. Cause: because he had money
and second language acquisition. Native lan- E. Condition: if I were you.
guage learners possess an intuitive knowledge 111. Coordinate structures,
of the syntactic patterns of their native lan- A. Modifiers:
1. Adjectival: fresh, white bread
guage by the time they begin to learn how
2. Adverbial: ran fast and carelessly
to write in school. Such is not the case in sec- B. Nominals: the man and woman
ond language learning, for conscious, intel- C. Predicates: he reads and writes
 A S T R A T E G Y FOR TEACHING W R I T I N G
struction. T h e following exercise in English
would give the student practice in embedding
by use of a relative clause construction and an
adverbial construction.
Teacher: Combine these two sentences by
using “whom”: T h e man is big. I see him.
Student: T h e man whom I see is big.
Teacher: Combine these two by using “be-
cause”: I am sad. It is raining.
Student: I am sad because it is raining.
The class will be asked to perform these exer-
cises orally and in writing.
After the student has had sufficient practice
in solving selected sentence-embedding prob-
lems, he will be asked to do exercises based
on a breakdown-reconstruct technique which
uses a model passage of prose as the point of
departure for sentence-combining practice.
An English example follows.
Step 1: Students read the following prose pas-
sage projected from a transparency.
Shortly after the war I met Paul. He
was sympathetic with me; he told
me that I was a timid, shy little girl
and that the other children did not
want to play with me.
Step 2: Students, having silently read through
the passage, are asked to write down
sequentially the constituent T-units.
1. Shortly after the war I met Paul
2. He was sympathetic with me.
3. He told me that I was a timid, shy
little girl and that the other chil-
dren did not want to play with
me.
Step 3: The T-units are repeated orally, and
the teacher poses simple content ques-
tions.
1. First T-unit:
When did Paul meet the narrator?
(He met her shortly after the war.)
2. Second T-unit:
How did Paul feel about her?
(He was sympathetic with her.)
Step 4: Students are asked to break down the
T-units which contain subordinate
clauses into underlying phrases that
would be complete by themselves.
(Necessary syntactic and lexical changes
are underlined below.)
1. Third T-unit
Paul told me something.
255
I was timid (shy, a little girl).
The other children did not want
to play with me
Step 5: In the final step students would re-
combine the constituent parts into a
whole. T h e teacher asks for silent re-
reading of the passage, and then on a
second transparency presents the T-
units in “dehydrated” form. The stu-
dents would reconstruct the passage in
writing. Reconstructions need not be
exactly like the original, for practice in
handling the various syntactic manipu-
lations is the primary purpose of such
an exercise.18
Such two-phase practice involving breaking
down and reconstructing model prose pas-
sages would give foreign language students
experience in combining syntactic operations
for a longer, more unified prose excerpt. Too
often, students are given free rein to use any
syntactic options they possess, and the result
is that they attempt too much. Students experi-
enced in sentence manipulation as outlined
above will be in a better position when writ-
ing their own compositions to make meaning-
ful syntactic choices because they will have
had practice in imitating the syntactic reper-
toire of native writers.
Exercises based on the third writing tech-
nique will require more creativity on the part
of the student. For example, the teacher can
tape an interesting picture on the blackboard
and have the students describe it i n the for-
eign language using very simple sentences.10
T h e teacher can then write the sentences on
the blackboard.
A typical travel poster might elicit the fol-
lowing statements:
1 . I see a girl.
2. She’s pretty.
3. She has black hair.
These exercises are to be followed by self-correc-
tion among students through use of overhead trans-
parencies.
“ A series of cartoons without words could serve
as the stimulus for a narrative passage. See, for ex-
ample, E. 0. Planen’s Vater und Sohn, Bildgeschich-
ten f u r Konversations und Aufsatzunterricht (Mu-
nich: Max Hueber Verlag, 1971).
256 T H E MODERN LANGUAGE I O U R N A L

4. Her hair is long. use of the syntactic options he has learned in

5. She’s smiling.
6. She’s holding a basket.
7. There are grapes in the basket.
8. There’s a river in the background.
9. There’s a castle behind her.
10. T h e sky is blue.
T h e next step would be for the teacher to
have students rewrite this series of short sen-
tences in a better way by combining those
sentences which seem to fit togther. T h e re-
sult might be as follows:
In this picture I see a pretty girl with long,
black hair. She’s smiling and holding a
basket full of grapes. Against the blue sky
in the background one sees a river and a
castle.
Three sentences are used in this example, but
there are many other possible variations.
Common sense from a stylistic point of view
is the only governing factor. This technique
for composition practice would be appropri-
ate at any level. Naturally, less advanced
students would be limited by the syntactic
structures they commanded, but the teacher
could guide them in their choice of structures.
Th e techniques outlined above for teach-
ing sentence-combining are arranged in a
progressive order of difficulty. T h e exercises
dealing with basic types of embedding prob-
lems introduce the student to the concept of
sentence-combining and give him guided
practice in performing such syntactic manipu-
lations. T h e breakdown-reconstruct exercises
require initial deductive effort from the stu-
dent as he disassembles the whole prose pas-
sage into its constituent parts. T h e second
step is inductive in nature, for the student
must rebuild the writing passage by making
the problem-solving exercises. Although he has
more freedom here, he is still guided by the
example passage. T h e third writing technique
gives the student almost complete freedom,
for he may now exercise his own judgment in
writing.
While conducting these exercises, the teach-
er could review or even introduce aspects of
syntax and morphology of the target lan-
guage. A German translation of the first En-
glish example (“The man whom I see is big”
and “I am sad because it is raining”) would
entail changes in finite verb position and se-
lection of the correct relative pronoun and
subordinating conjunction. At this point the
teacher could briefly summarize the appropri-
ate rules that explain these syntactic and mor-
phological changes. Other exercises in the first
group serve conveniently for review of prepo-
sitions and adjective endings. In fact, these
initial sentence-combining problems readily
lend themselves to a review of most major
grammar aspects except verb systems.
While the main focus is on writing in the
above exercises, the other three skills are not
allowed to lie fallow. As the student works
with the embedding problems, he also prac-
tices speaking and listening comprehension.
T h e same is true in the exercises dealing with
picture description, and in the breakdown-
reconstruct exercise there is practice in read-
ing.
Foreign language teachers can easily employ
these techniques aimed at developing syn-
tactic maturity. They are based on sound re-
search findings, are easy to construct, and
have enough variety to assure student interest.
Used as suggested, they represent a new ap-
proach to teaching writing and can help re-
store writing to a more equal position among
the other three skills.

* * * * *

COMING ARTICLES include “A Natural Approach to Second Language Acquisition and Learning,” by Tracy D. Terrell;
‘’ ‘Reading German’: A Self-Tutorial Skills-Learning Package,” by Bruce A. Beatie; “ ‘Standard’ versus ‘Dialect’ in Bilingual
Education: An Old Problem in a New Context,” by Joshua A. Fishman; “An Inductive Approach to the Rules of Speaking,” by
Sandra L. McKay: and “A Word Order ‘Formula’for Beginning German Students,” by Richard C. Helt.