Grammar Sample Sentences and the Power of Suggestion

Ellen Strenski

doi:10.2307/376319

College English Jan 1979

Grammar Sample Sentences and the Power of Suggestion

Ellen Strenski

Abstract

IN The Bald Soprano Ionesco satirizes the grammar samples he studied while learning English, and many of us still remember some absurdly useless fragment, like How old is your aunt?, from a freshman foreign language class. But what about our own composition textbooks and tests? Humor, and opportunities to smile and share that pleasure with students, are welcome. But when I consider one of the findings of the second round of reading tests (1974-5) by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which demonstrated a decline in students' ability to detect irony, I wonder whether some of our grammar samples may not be suggesting unsuitable messages, to say the least, to students who are disposed, or decide, to read them literally. Such a discomfiting possibility occurred to me recently when a group of freshman composition students balked at doing this sentence combining exercise:

Journal: College English
Published: 1979-01-01
DOI: 10.2307/376319
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Open Access: Closed
Topics: first-year composition voice and style assessment multilingual writers grammar and mechanics
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Grammar Sample Sentences and the Power of Suggestion

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