The Rhetoric/syntax Split: Designing a Curriculum for Esl Students

Any college writing teacher who has read even a moderate number of essays can attest to the fact that writing proficiency exists on several different planes independently. For example, one paper can provide insightful commentary on a substantive topic while replete with problems in spelling and punctuation. Another paper can exhibit a wide range of sentence structures, flawless syntax, adherence to mechanics, yet lack development and support of its central thesis. Still another paper may be hard to read because it lacks a sense of purpose and shows no awareness of audience yet seems to be about an unusual personal experience which the reader is most curious to learn more about. In fact, empirical data from native writers of English show that the level of a student writer's proficiency in one component of writing does not necessarily correlate with his or her proficiency in a different component. For example, George Hillocks discusses the repertoire of knowledge bases that a writer has, e.g., knowledge of lexical, syntactic, and rhetorical forms, and then reviews the findings of several first language studies comparing syntactic features and quality of writing