SYNTACTIC AND RHETORICAL ORGANIZATION AND THE TEACHING OF FRESHMAN COMPOSITION

The purpose of the proposed research is to explore the relationship presumed to exist between the syntactic and rhetorical components of compositions and to determine an appropriate method of instruction based upon that relationship. Grammarians and rhetoricians agree that there are two dimensions (syntactic and rhetorical) to "well-formed" sentences, but they disagree as to which element has primacy over the other. Grammarians argue that the principles underlying sentence-level meaning account for paragraph and essay-level meaning; rhetoricians argue the reverse. The present research is designed to explore the possibility that both explanations are correct, that syntax and rhetoric are autonomous components of compositions but that they also operate according to one set of perceptual principles--analysis and synthesis--which is applied differently at the levels of the sentence and the paragraph/essay. Thus, a student whose syntactic and rhetorical skills develop at different rates might produce a composition that is organized intelligently at the level of the essay but is executed poorly at the level of individual sentences (and vice versa). The claim has direct importance for the teaching of composition: if the same perceptual principles (analysis and synthesis) can be observed to operate at the levels of the sentence and the paragraph/essay, then one could expect the writing of students to improve to the extent that these principles are made explicit in the composition classroom. The proposed experiment is designed to test the validity of this claim. Twelve freshman-composition classes at The American University are involved in the experiment. Three groups will receive explicit instruction in the principle of analysis and synthesis as it applies to the writing of compositions. Three groups will receive such instruction for the level of the sentence and three more for the level of the paragraph/essay. The remaining (control) groups will receive no such instruction. The research design predicts that the writing of students who receive explicit instruction in analysis and synthesis will be judged superior (holistically and along dimensions of rhetorical and syntactic maturity) to the writing of students in the other groups. Having presented the research proposal, the author offers a critique of a pilot study conducted at The American University (during the fall semester, 1980), upon which he based his proposal. He then demonstrates the usefulness of the theoretical orientation underlying the experimental design by conducting a "close reading" of a student's paper.