Foreword by Thomas Newkirk
Introduction:
Three Questions I Could Not Answer
Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Sentence
“Just a Guy”: Independence High School to San Francisco State
The Three Pillars of Sentence Instruction
Part One: Sentence Focus (Get the “Awk” Outta Here)
Positioning Our Students for Growth
Alexis de Tocqueville and the Subject A Test
Sources of Sentence Focus Errors
The Beauty of Understanding Sentence Focus
Part Two: Sentence Development (Writing Between the Commas)
Riding Bicycles into Rosebushes
Understanding Sentence Development
Structures for Leveraging Information: The Adjective Clause and the Noun Phrase Appositive
Structures for Adding Detail and Imagery: The Verbal Phrase and the Absolute
The Correlative Not-But
Toward a Theory of Latency
Some Final Thoughts About These Exercises
Part Three: Sentence Coherence (Making Sentences Work Together)
Writing to Think
What Is Sentence Coherence?
Inward to the Text, Outward to the World
What Is Development in Writing?
Part Four: Sentence Instruction At Work (“Voices They Had Not Heard Before”)
The Three Pillars at Work in the Classroom
Seven Days in May
A Stack of Essays