Controlled Composition

The purpose of these exercises is to give practice in writing student­generated short paragraphs, letters, dialogs, and other units longer than a single sentence. Some of the exercises are suitable for homework, and some can be best done in class. Another way to handle these compositions is to hold a writing lab within the classroom. In this procedure, each student works independently; the teacher walks around the room, commenting on the papers and x helping students one by one. Especially good compositions can be read aloud at the end of the lab period. A few composition exercises are of the highly controlled variety, in which the students’ task is basically to copy a given text and to make cer tain required changes of tense, pronoun usage, or similar changes. These occur primarily in the first half of the book, when the students’ grammatical repertoire is still fairly limited. Dicto-comps are used in almost every chapter to form a bridge between grammar work and free writing. They resemble dictations in that the content has been predetermined. However, as the directions indicate, the students are not asked to write a word-for-word copy of the original. Rather, they are to listen three times before writing, and then to compose a paragraph from memory, as close to the wording of the origi nal as possible. Partly completed compositions with large blanks are a kind of con - trolled composition that calls for more student input. These assignments provide the students with choices that are varied enough to allow an op portunity for expression, but controlled enough to make incorrect combi nations rather unlikely. By completing each sentence appropriately, stu dents can practice writing paragraphs, letters, and memos in their own words, conforming to a standard form. Some composition assignments are almost entirely free, stimulated by a list of questions or a picture. When this kind of assignment is given, there has been a previous text in the chapter which can serve as a model. In the second half of the book there are exercises that treat the pro - cess of composition as a problem of arranging and ordering ideas. In these assignments, sentences are given to the students, but they are out of order. The students’ task is to rewrite the composition in a logical order.