On Topic or Off Topic Depending………

In the readings for Monday, I find Lindeman’s claim that “[d]espite textbook pronouncements, anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of the paragraphs written by accomplished professionals do not contain topic sentences” (149), to be of interest to me. Why even waste my students’ time going over topic sentences? Sure, I need to explain to them that their writing should contain a purpose that is clear to the reader, but what if I was to get away from topic sentences? What would happen? Would student be able to write coherent prose, or would I be foolish to take such a course of action?

Ironically, Lindeman implies that topic sentences are pointless, yet she goes on to give outlines about that illustrate subordinate and coordinate relationships in speech. An illustration that really stuck out to me is Sinclair Lewis’ writing that the theorist Christensen uses to support the notion that “writers can elaborate any base clause by attaching to it coordinate and subordinate work groups… a base clause together with all of its modifiers” (153). Although my comprehension of grammatical/syntactical theory is somewhat atrocious, the breakdown of Sinclair’s sentence made me think about structure:

“1 He dipped his hands in the biochloride solution and shook them,”

“2 a quick shake,”

“3 fingers down,”

“4 like the fingers of a pianist above the keys.” (153)

1 I find this interesting, because it makes me think

2 about free-verse poetry.

1 A pretty abstract way to think about language,

2 sure I know a little bit about clauses

3 but will looking at them in this context

4 do anything to change the structure of my writing

5 and make more complicated sentences by extending my base clauses with modifiers?

1 Am I doing this correctly,

2 does this strategy apply to paragraphs as well,

3 or is this type of thinking a bit too linear with formal writing?

1 It appear to me to be a bit contradictory

2 that Lindeman challenges topic sentence instruction

3 and then uses these clause/paragraph diagramming activities to diagram pieces of writing,

4 but hey,

5 what do I know,

6 save the fact that this mode of writing or diagramming

7 helps me develop much more complicated sentences.

Do I have a run-on sentence on my hands or what? I wonder if “sequencing lessons” (155) would be of help to my students….