This is one of the books used by an NCTE reviewer of the KISS Grammar: You'll Love It manuscript in an attempt to show that the KISS curriculum is not based on "research."  [For the manuscript, reviews, and comments, click here.] In effect, the reviewer (# 3) claimed that syntactic development is complete before children enter school. The book does not support the reviewer's claim. (My notes are in blue.)

Contents

Acknowledgements page 9
1 INTRODUCTION 15
2 THE PURPOSES OF WRITING 21

Why Bother with Writing? 30
The Value of Writing  31

Classification Systems 38
The Use of Classifications in Teaching 45

    'With the exception of lexical refinement, the organisation [sic] of syntax appears to be complete in most respects by four or five.' (D. McNeill -- The Acquisition of Language) [This is an epigraph.]

     'The second stage of learning the native language is learning the grammatical system . . . it is complete and the books are closed on it! -- at about eight years of age. It is not normal to learn any more grammar beyond that age.'
(Martin Joos -- Language Arts in the Elementary School) [This is also an epigraph. It is interested to note that "the books are closed" even though third graders write approximately 8 words per main clause, twelfth graders write an average of 14, and professional adults average 20. (More on this). This increase in sentence length is clearly an increase in grammatical/syntactic fluency. Why then, are the books closed? What we have here is a very superficial concept of "grammar."]

Describing the Language of Writing 52
Influences on Writing Development 74
Conclusion 84

Classifying Writing Situations 95
Themes and Variations 98
Starting Points 104

"In Chapter 4 the evidence from our writers indicated an approach to mastery of clause use before an understanding and use of functionally-equivalent phrases. The system, however, has invariably treated phrases before clauses for teaching purposes."
[The gerundive is a phrase that is functionally-equivalent to a clause. For more on this, see "The Difference between Gerundives and Participles."]

A Survey of Evidence 114
Suggestions for Progressions in Writing 116

Conditions for Writing 126
The Treatment of Writing 139

9 CONCLUSION AND PROSPECT 155

Bibliography 158
Index 163