English

ERIC ED355557: "Come Back to the Text Ag'in, Huck Honey!"

Has the new emphasis on process versus product led instructors to teach that the writing process is everything and the product, the finished paper, of no import? This is a lesson that not even the most orthodox believer in writing process methodology would support. The process and the product are, in fact, mutually linked, rather than mutually exclusive. Many teachers embraced "process pedagogy" partly because it freed them of the necessity of teaching grammar. And, the sort of traditional grammar teaching generally associated with instruction in composition has never been shown to improve student writing. With sentence combining, however, instructors can use grammar to teach writing. Sentence combining exercises enable students to learn about the problems a writer might face in manipulating text and--at the same time--learn about the process a writer goes through in creating text. Studies show that practice with sentence combining makes students better writers. Such an exercise can even be used without reference to any grammatical terminology in a process oriented class. It should be possible to bring together lessons about grammar and literature, process and product, and more con

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