By Titcha Ho
As multilingual students try to navigate through complex ideas in English, often the old wives’ tale from back home echoes in their ears, “the more complex the sentence, the better.” However, attempting to write what one may call “sophisticated” sentences without guidance can be quite a challenge. Since foreign languages often combine ‘independent clauses’ differently, I typically see sentences where multilingual students use a comma instead of a period. A sentence that is considered to be a run-on sentence in English works perfectly fine in my first language. Teachers often tell students the only solution is to write simpler sentences, where the grammar is easier to control. Again, however, to many multilingual students, “the more complex the sentence, the smarter you look.” How can consultants then offer an alternative to cutting a long sentence that instead creates a grammatically correct complex sentence? Trying to solve this problem using sentence combining techniques may help this Goldilocks parody: too simple or too complex (and grammatically wrong).
Deborah Dean attests to the effectiveness of using sentence combining to enhance meaning. The procedure of designing a sentence combining exercise is to create a list of sentences and ask students to combine all the sentences into one that integrates all the ideas found on the list. Using Dean’s exercise, I am attempting to combine these sentences:
- Cell phones are banned;
- They are banned in our school (BECAUSE THEY);
- Cell phones cause distractions;
- The distractions are to learning.
My attempt: Causing distractions to learning, cell phones are banned in our school.
In the process that led me to the sentence, I prioritized what information was important and then came up with the possible ways that I could combine the information within an acceptable grammatical parameter. To add to what Dean proposes, Harry Noden in his book Image Grammar views sophisticated sentences written by experienced writers as sentences with five brushstrokes:
- participle (an ing word placed in the beginning of a sentence)
Ex: Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-back snake attacked its prey. - absolute (a group of nouns followed by an ing word)
Ex: Jaws cracking, tongue curling, the kitten yawned tiredly, awaking from her nap (Tara Tesmer). - appositive (noun followed by another noun)
Ex: The car, a new Porsche, ran out of gas. - adjectives shifted out of order (select three adjectives, put one adjective before the noun it modifies and two adjectives after the noun)
Ex: The white horse, muscular and fearless, galloped across the dusty field. - action verbs (using active verb instead of passive verbs)
Ex: Instead of “The gravel road was on the left side of the barn,” a sentence that uses active verbs might be, “The gravel road curled around the left side of the barn.” (Examples are from Noden)
In thinking through these categories—what is considered acceptable in an English sentence—I was able to write a complex sentence that was grammatically correct. Now that I look back, this seems to the missing grammar lesson I needed as an ESL student. I used a participle to start a sentence in my example. Modeling the different ways to compose a sentence in a writing center session can offer a viable alternative to help multilingual students to become more advanced writers.
Works Cited
Noden, Harry. Image Grammar: Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process. 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2011. Print.
Dean, Deborah. “Sentence Combining: Building Skills through Reading and Writing.” Classroom Notes Plus. Ed. Felice A. Kaufmann. National Council of Teachers of English, Aug. 2008. Web. 29 Apr. 2016.
Published May 13, 2016
