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Philosophy
of the Author of the Hunter Writing System: Sentence Sense Text--Short Version
The Foremost Requirement to Be an
Effective Writer
A key--and all but universally
overlooked--requirement to be an effective writer is an internalized
command of sentence structure. Writers must have command
not only of a variety of ways in which they can begin sentences but also
of a variety of phrase and clause alternatives (to single words) whereby
they can most tellingly express themselves.
The Chief Means to Acquiring
This Indispensable
Skill
The means to learning such a
versatile command of structure is immersion in this structure. Writers
achieve such immersion by the carrying out of exercises designed to enable
them--through the rearranging of sentence parts--to experience
the role of these parts. They consequently become empowered to write with
maximum effectiveness.
The Text That Teaches Command
of Sentence Structure
The text whose primary purpose
is to teach such a mastery of sentence structure--and skill in
paragraph-and-essay writing to complement it--is The Hunter Writing
System: Sentence Sense. (This text also teaches the key rules of
usage.)
The Void Where Such Instruction Is Missing
It is the experience of
countless children, youth--and adults, too--who have not received such
instruction that their attempts to write are frustrated because they are
unable to arrange words to have the meaning or impact intended.
See the Rationale
section for illustration and corroboration of some of the points made
here. Also go to the Author's Corner
section.
Philosophy of
the Author of the Hunter Writing System: Sentence Sense Text--Full
Version
A Costly Oversight in Current
Strategies
to Teach Writing
Ownership and command of sentence structure
are the most important means by which students become successful writers.
Unhappily, current strategies for teaching writing neither include nor
propose instruction that would provide this. Students do not
acquire ownership and command of sentence structure by means of voluminous
writing or by correcting faults in their own writing. Neither do they
acquire such ownership by learning to identify the parts of speech and of
a sentence nor by learning the rules of usage.
The Sure-Fire Road to
Writing Power:
Structural Immersion
Ownership of sentence structure consists in
the insight into the structure of English that stems from a guided
experiencing of how a sentence's parts interact, especially as
sentences begin. Such an ownership of
structure is a sure precursor of a person's ability to write English with fluency, confidence, and control.
This ownership of
structure is what students gain as they learn the Hunter writing system.
The Hunter system includes strategies for rearranging sentences--based on
students' spoken knowledge of English--whereby they experience
and therefore internalize the roles of the key components of the
sentence. (More often than not, these key components are groups of words
rather than single words.)
This immersion in structure stands as an
empowering backdrop that enables students to write (and read, speak, and
listen) with ease, self-assurance, and competence. Because of this
empowering, they now understand the reasons for the rules of usage and
style and can therefore apply them while they write, revise, and edit ...
and retain them.
The fruit of this command of sentence
structure is that students become accomplished writers--in part because
they acquire this command of structure in combination with the Hunter
writing system's sequenced, comprehensive, and innovative treatment of
paragraph and essay writing. The textbook that contains the instruction
and practice for this system is The Hunter Writing System: Sentence
Sense (Loudonville, NY: Hunter & Joyce, 1991, 1994).
Incompetence as the Fruit
of Much
Current Instruction in Writing
This immersion in the system of the
structure of English is an indispensable component of one's education--even if not received until one's college years or still later.
Wherever this ownership-of-structure-based foundation for writing is not
being taught, too many children, youths, and adults find themselves
approaching the task of writing with distrust in their own ability and
with feelings of reluctance, frustration, and even embarrassment due to
their incompetence as writers.
Prior Needs of
Some Underprepared Writers
There are two other bodies of
knowledge/experience that underlie students' ability to write English
competently, but at the level of words rather than sentences. One of these
is a ready command of a broad and deep vocabulary. The other is ownership
of the sound-spelling correspondences (popularly known as phonics) that enables students to spell with
ease and correctness, as well as read with greater facility.
Excessive weakness in
either of these areas can undermine the benefits to be reaped from mastery
of sentence structure as recommended here.
See the Rationale
section for illustration and corroboration of some of the points made
here. Also go to the Author's Corner
section.
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