Thursday, May 22, 2008

Archive: Beginnings.

The purpose of this blog is to summarize articles on teaching English/language arts, from kindergarten through college, published in English education journals from the past.

Topic: Beginnings

Title: “Rhetorical Beginnings: Professional and Amateur.” Louise Crew. College Composition and Communication (October 1987), 346-350.

Summary: Compared the beginnings used by professional writers in Psychology Today to those used by her amateur student writers. One finding: 60% of the pro’s began with narratives. 30% of the student writers began with rhetorical questions. The pro’s never do.

Comment; I had students analyze the opening paragraphs of the venerable Reader’s Digest. We made quite a long list of techniques to use in beginning paragraphs. RayS.

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