Arthur Whimbey web site

Have I ever mentioned I'm a fan of Arthur Whimbey's?

Possibly not, apart from the 6 posts I see I've written on text reconstruction.



I've just discovered (re-discovered?) an Arthur Whimbey web site. 

I'm ordering one of the Thinking Through Grammar books.

Page samples here.

summer 2009

In theory, C. is working through these books:

Megawords 6

Analyze, Organize, Write by Arthur Whimbey & Elizabeth Lynn Jenkins (text reconstruction)

Sentence Composing for High School: A Worktext on Sentence Variety and Maturity by Don Killgallon
Grammar for High School: A Sentence-Composing Approach---A Student Worktext by Don Killgallon & Jenny Killgallon
Sentence Combining Workbook by Pam Altman, et. al.

French by Association by Michael Gruenberg
Behind the Wheel French for the car^*
ALEKS Geometry

I have no idea whether the Killgallon books 'work,' whether Killgallon's exercises, in and of themselves, improve a person's writing. I don't care. I love them so much I'm insisting C. do them. I'm going to do the college book myself. Here's the Killgallons' web site.

As for the Whimbey/Jenkins book, I take Myra Linden's word for it:

"In a study of ‘before‘ and ‘after‘ papers of students who used text reconstruction, I concluded that text reconstruction was effective in helping students learn to organize their ideas into coherent paragraphs. The most marked improvement in their second samples was in content. Students were able to furnish specific details to support general statements. In addition, students showed consistent improvement in organization and style.

"I believe that this approach works because the constant practice in arrangement of content from the general to the specific provided by the text … fosters the most basic writing skills of presenting specific content and organizing it logically into a cohesive pattern. Students replace their faulty composing patterns with effective ones that become automatic skills. In addition, students who do significant amounts of text reconstruction learn indispensable techniques for effective study skills. It helps note-taking. It aids in learning outlining and summarizing skills, and it teaches the general-specific arrangement of ideas.

Why Johnny Can't Write by Myra J. Linden

^* Behind the Wheel Spanish & Spanish by Association for me -- also Fluenz

before and after - ELL student using text reconstruction

from Why Johnny Can't Write: How to Improve Writing Skills by Myra J. Linden and Arthur Whimbey:

Student C: Paragraph Written Before TRC

The best movie I’ve seen recently is “The Killing field.” Why I said this movie is good. Because it was a true story of Cambodia. This movie showed how miserable all the Cambodian people during Communist took over, and talking about Cambodian translater was a good honest man with his American reporter friend, stucked with communist for 5 years and finally try to escape the country and got succeeded, how he lived in United States.

Twelve Weeks Later: From Opinion Paper

The United States is an enjoyable place to live. Having been born and raised in Cambodia and also having traveled through Europe I know the United States is the best place to live….Secondly opportunity most people in this country live in the middle class of society. If you work hard you can have just about anything you want. You can study and improve your way of life and your job; therefore, increasing your income. You don’t need to be a doctor or engineer to own your own home or car because with good credit you can get a loan. In Cambodia, my dad worked hard seven days a week with no time off to afford one home, two cars, and send my brother to college. There were no such thing as loans.


Instead of the scrambled constructions marred with verb errors of the first sample, in the second this student, learning English as a second language, uses sophisticated sentences with participial phrases and prepositional phrase openers. She also uses complex sentences opening and closing with adverbial clauses and demonstrates the use of cohesion devices such as “Secondly.”

[This student] continued to have proofreading problems and …mechanical errors (although less frequently), requiring additional work. But [she] learned to organize coherent paragraphs and furnish specific details to support general statements.

In describing weak writers—estimated to be roughly 70% of America’s 11th graders—The Writing Report Card observes that the understood “what is required in” an analytical writing assignment, but their evidence is “disorganized or unelaborated. Rather than using coherent arguments or explanations, far too many students resorted to simple lists…”

Myra Linden on text reconstruction (excellent)
Analyze, Organize, Write by Arthur Whimbey and Elizabeth Lynn Jenkins (terrific text reconstruction textbook)
text reconstruction posts

The Writing Report Card: Writing Achievement in American Schools by Arthur N. Applebee, Judith A. Langer, Ina V.S. Mullis
Princeton, N.J. : Educational Testing Service, [1986]
ISBN 088685055X (pbk.)

home writing program in place, for now

The precision teaching folks have shown me the way....

• sentence combining
• text reconstruction
• "text reduction" (my term)

the books I'm using:

• Sentence-Combining Workbook by Pam Altman, Mari Caro, Lisa Metge-Egan, Leslie Roberts (looks terrific)
  
• Analyze, Organize, Write by Arthur Whimbey & Elizabeth Lynn Jenkins (is terrific)
  
• Six-Way Paragraphs Middle Level by Walter Pauk
  
• Six-Way Pargraphs in the Content Areas: Advanced Level
  

I may shuffle things around once I'm finished reading William Kerrigan's Writing to the Point. The book's sole review on Amazon explains why:

Kerrigan and Metcalf provide a comprehensive and clear method for writing expository papers. Although geared for a college freshman writing class, using this text at the junior high and high school level could preclude its use in college. I have used this text with my gifted intermediate elementary school students with great success. The students love the straight forward approach to writing, and do not feel that their creativity has been hampered in the least. If you are having difficulty teaching written expression, check out this novel approach!

Buried treasure. The book is out of print; I would never have found it if not for my precision teaching quest, though the precision teaching folks don't seem to have heard of the book, either. I think I found it on a homeschooling listmania Amazon posted to the Why Johnny Can't Write page.

Speaking of which, Why Johnny Can't Write is (almost) an ur-text for writing the same way Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics is for Math.

Amazing.






help for the struggling writer
sentence combining exercise
we're starting a copybook
man-eaters of Kumaon - text reconstruction
expert advice on teaching writing from Joanne Jacobs
eureka
more from Joanne Jacobs
doctor pion on writing a precis and critical reading
first crack at editing exercise
home writing program in place, for now
why kids should do text reconstruction
results of sentence combining exercise

whimbey.com
Arthur Whimbey obit
BGF Performance Systems (carries Whimbey's books)
Tips for Teaching Grammar from the Writing Next Report (pdf file)
Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve the Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools (pdf file)

Writing to the Point Fourth Edition Table of Contents
Amazon review Kerrigan & home program
Writing to the Point, first installment
William J. Kerrigan and the sentence
writing and swimming: pp 1 & 2 Kerrigan
writing and swimming: pp 1 & 2 Kerrigan
To the Instructor

the Celts

Read the sentences, decide which comes first, second, third, and fourth, and number them in order.



_____ A crane would take away your courage and your skill—three cranes would leave you with as much fight as a lettuce leaf.



_____ There were signs that told a warrior to fight, or to pack up and go home.



_____ They believed that there were good days for fighting and bad days.



_____ The Celts were fearless fighters yet they could easily be put off a fight.



_____ If he saw a crane bird, for example, he knew that would bring him bad luck.



Horrible Histories: The Cut-Throat Celts
By Terry Deary; Illustrated by Martin Brown
p. 5


Check your numbers with your Dad. Where you disagree, explain to each other why you arranged the sentences as you did.

Next, copy the sentences in the order you numbered them on a separate sheet of paper. Do not copy word-by-word. For each sentence, follow these steps:

1. Read as many words as you believe you can write correctly from memory (five to ten).

2. Write those words from memory, including all capitals and punctuation marks.

3. Check back to the original sentence and correct any errors you made.

4. Read the next group of words and repeat the steps.

Sometimes you may be able to remember an entire simple sentence correctly. But with a large difficult-to-spell word, you may try to write only that one word correctly from memory.

Ben Franklin used this technique to teach himself to write.




The Celts were fearless fighters yet they could easily be put off a fight. They believed that there were good days for fighting and bad days. There were signs that told a warrior to fight, or to pack up and go home. If he saw a crane bird, for example, he knew that would bring him bad luck. A crane would take away your courage and your skill—three cranes would leave you with as much fight as a lettuce leaf.

Horrible Histories: The Cut-Throat Celts
By Terry Deary; Illustrated by Martin Brown
p. 5

Man-Eaters Tigers of Kumaon - text reconstruction exercise

Sentence combining and text reconstruction are going to be the new regime around here.

This morning Ed looked at the baseball sentence combining exercise I created from a sentence in a Times article. He would have put the sentence together differently, which gave me the idea that I should have both Ed and Christopher do one exercise a day and then compare notes.

I've just typed up this text reconstruction exercise for Day One.

I'm psyched.

................................


Read the sentences, decide which comes first, second, third, and fourth, and number them in order.


_____ Human beings are not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to live, they are compelled to take a diet of human flesh.


_____ The stress of circumstances is, in nine out of ten cases, wounds, and in the tenth case old age.


_____ The wound that has caused a particular tiger to take to man-eating might be the result of a carelessly fired shot and failure to follow up and recover the wounded animal, or the result of the tiger having lost his temper when killing a porcupine.


_____ A man-eating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled, through stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien to it.


source:
Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett, p vii
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944


Check your numbers with your Dad. Where you disagree, explain to each other why you arranged the sentences as you did.

Next, copy the sentences in the order you numbered them on a separate sheet of paper. Do not copy word-by-word. For each sentence, follow these steps:

1. Read as many words as you believe you can write correctly from memory (five to ten).

2. Write those words from memory, including all capitals and punctuation marks.

3. Check back to the original sentence and correct any errors you made.

4. Read the next group of words and repeat the steps.

Sometimes you may be able to remember an entire simple sentence correctly. But with a large difficult-to-spell word, you may try to write only that one word correctly from memory.

Ben Franklin used this technique to teach himself to write.

..............................

original paragraph:

A man-eating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled, through stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien to it. The stress of circumstances is, in nine out of ten cases, wounds, and in the tenth case old age. The wound that has caused a particular tiger to take to man-eating might be the result of a carelessly fired shot and failure to follow up and recover the wounded animal, or the result of the tiger having lost his temper when killing a porcupine. Human beings are not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to live, they are compelled to take a diet of human flesh.

Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Jim Corbett
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944
p vii
Oxford India Paperbacks


help for the struggling writer
sentence combining exercise
we're starting a copybook
man-eaters of Kumaon - text reconstruction

we're starting a copybook

from: Improving Grammar and Other Writing Skills with Text Reconstruction (TR)
by Myra Linden

A modern version of a proven learning-to-write process, text reconstruction (TR), capitalizes on both language manipulation and "patterns of activity" to teach grammar and other writing skills in the context of connected discourse beyond the single sentence. Thus it is a useful supplement to other methods of teaching grammar. In his autobiography Benjamin Franklin tells how he devised a form of TR to improve his writing skills. As an apprentice in his brother's print shop, he set into print the essays of Addison and Steele. He took notes from the essays by writing several words from each sentence. These he calls "short hints of the sentiment in each sentence." Next he mixed the hints into random order and set them aside.

Several weeks later he tried to arrange the hints into their original order to recreate the logical organization of the essay. He says, "This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts." Then he attempted to write each sentence from just the hints, checking back to the original and noting any deviations, trying to master the vocabulary, sentence structure, and style of the writer (208-209).

A variation of TR is used in the workbook by Arthur Whimbey and Elizabeth Lynn Jenkins, Analyze, Organize, Write. The authors wrote sample papers and then jumbled the sentences within each paragraph. Students number the sentences in what they consider the best order. Then they compare arrangements and discuss differences with other students, pinpointing the information and logic they employ. Finally, they write the sentences in the order numbered.

Here is a short sample TR exercise and the instructions for students:

Instructions: Read all the sentences. Decide which should come first and number it 1. Then decide which should come second and number it 2. Continue numbering the remaining sentences in this way.

_____ Therefore, when nineteen-year-old Michael Grubbs became this year's queen, it shocked no one.

_____ One year its queen was a dog and another year a refrigerator.

_____ Rice University has had some unusual homecoming queens in the past.

_____ So Michael has agreed to give up his title and escort his runner-up, Nancy Jones, to the festivities.

_____ But Cotton Bowl rules prohibit a man from being a princess in the parade.

Check your numbers with a neighbor if possible. Where you disagree, explain to each other why you arranged the sentences as you did.

Next, copy the sentences in the order you numbered them on a separate sheet of paper. Copying sentences can be especially helpful for improving writing skills if done as Ben Franklin did -- from memory. Do not just copy word-by-word. For each sentence, follow these steps:

1. Read as many words as you believe you can write correctly from memory (usually five to ten words).

2. Write those words from memory, including all capitals and punctuation marks.

3. Check back to the original sentence and correct any errors you made.

4. Read the next group of words and repeat the steps.

Generally you will be able to read, memorize, and correctly write between five and ten words. Sometimes you may be able to remember an entire simple sentence correctly. But with a large difficult-to-spell word, you may try to write only that one word correctly from memory.

Writing from memory is a powerful technique for learning the spelling, grammar, punctuation, and word patterns used in standard written English (Linden Analytical 2).

As you can see, TR involves analyzing an author's work and copying his or her language to strengthen one's own writing skills. This method was used at the Handy Colony that produced James Jones and other successful authors. Members of the colony were assigned to read and analyze works and then to copy them in order to get the feel of finishing an extended piece of work, to handle transitions from scene to scene, and to learn conciseness. Jones himself said that one can read until his eyes are red but only by copying word for word can a person see how an author builds up his effects (MacShane 117-118).

Copying is a time-honored, recently rediscovered mode of learning. From its use by Renaissance schoolboys like Shakespeare with their copybooks (to record exercises) and commonplace books (to record passages of possible content for their own essays), copying played an important role in the education of many famous authors including Milton, Thomas Jefferson, Jack London, Malcolm X, and Joan Didion.

Well worth the time to read the entire essay, which includes a set of instructions for creating your own text reconstruction exercises at the end.

We're going to do this.

I'm sure C. will be happy when I tell him.

help for the struggling writer
sentence combining exercise
we're starting a copybook
man-eaters of Kumaon - text reconstruction
expert advice on teaching writing from Joanne Jacobs
eureka
more from Joanne Jacobs
doctor pion on writing a precis and critical reading
first crack at editing exercise
home writing program in place, for now
why kids should do text reconstruction
results of sentence combining exercise

whimbey.com
Arthur Whimbey obit
BGF Performance Systems (carries Whimbey's books)
Tips for Teaching Grammar from the Writing Next Report (pdf file)
Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve the Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools (pdf file)