Customer Reviews

Why Johnny Can't Write: How to Improve Writing Skills

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This is an important but slow and ponderous book. Even though this was not a lively book, the subject matter made it a page-turner for me. The authors describe which methods have shown quantitative results in helping students learn to write.

The authors have an icy spot in their hearts for Peter Elbow and the free writing methods they criticize so roundly -- perhaps to payback Elbow's criticisms of this author's Sentence Combining methods. (For those who do not know of Peter Elbow... he is the grand advocate of student's doing (usually timed) free writing to discover what they really wanted to say.)

These authors believe Sentence Combining exercises have proved more successful in teaching students to write -- particularly when compared to free writing. Sentence Combining is where you are given maybe ten sets of three (or more) sentences. Your job is to construct one sentence by combining the three sentences into one. When you're done, you'll have ten complicated sentences that make a very long paragraph. The purpose is to get the student to organize his thoughts under time pressure.

I believe they criticize free writing because it is often touted as a solution for everything from writing to thinning hair. One of their main contentions is that the students need feedback to what they write and this feedback is too time consuming when everyone is writing long essays. Thus the students don't receive the reputed benefits of timed writing.

After using their recommended regimen, I believe that Sentence Combining can provide ONE of the methods to help students create interesting sentences, to create organized paragraphs, to write in a more sophisticated manner. However, it is not the great technique that they say it is. To me, it appears too simple.

What I particularly liked was their discussion of copying great writing. They call this "Text Reconstruction." Ben Franklin used a form of this. So did Somerset Maugham and other notable authors. Malcolm X copied a dictionary while in prison. There is much to recommend this technique. Some authors talk about it but only these authors have quoted research to support it quantitatively.

The authors review several other teaching methods and describe the history of writing, English, literature in the college curriculums. I found that fascinating as well.

This book is not that large but it might prove ponderous to some because of the copious examples, references, and history. Highly recommended for writing instructors.

I don't see why the methods recommended by these authors can't be used with cult-hero Peter Elbows' free writing. I think Peter Elbow's approach is more important. Perhaps the correct approach would be: 1/2 or more of Peter Elbow's free-writing, and the remaining filled with directed writing exercises (one being Sentence Completions).

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

These are experienced teachers who reveal the shortcomings of "the 'process' (to writing) and its offspring, 'writing across the curriculum'." They laud the "sentence combining" procedure--proven successful and backed by research. Although a scholarly, in-depth look at what they consider the current, sorry practices of teaching writing, and their recommendations on how to rectify this, the book is a surprisingly easy and engrossing read. Suitable for language arts/English teachers of grades four and up.

The Creative Teacher: Activities for Language Arts (Grades 4 through 8 and Up)