# What was the pedagogical value of complete sentences? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 12, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638 "2010-01-12T07:33:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/1 "2010-01-12T07:33:10Z")
In school, we had to answer all of our tests in complete sentences. If the question was “What color is the fence”, we couldn’t just answer “White”. Instead, we had to write “The color of the fence is white”. Over the course of 20 or so questions, this quickly got tedious and I never really understood what the point of it was. What was the pedagogical reason for teaching this way? I had it across several schools and I just discovered some of my friends were also taught this way in school. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/2 "2010-01-12T08:11:59Z")
Presumably the point is that it helps you to learn to write in complete, grammatical and correctly spelled sentences, and gives you practice in doing so. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/3 "2010-01-12T09:06:10Z")
That would have annoyed the hell out of me. I’d probably answer it like so: _“White” is the answer to the question that you asked._ ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/4 "2010-01-12T09:20:39Z")
The purpose is to teach you from an early age that success in life depends partly on slavishly following pointless rules. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/5 "2010-01-12T09:29:55Z")
I think part of the purpose is to try to encourage the pupil to communicate above the level of grunted monosyllables. Not sure it works, but it’s a nice idea. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/6 "2010-01-12T11:19:18Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Presumably the point is that it helps you to learn to write in complete, grammatical and correctly spelled sentences, and gives you practice in doing so. Except it didn’t teach anything of the sort. “Writing in complete sentences” meant a rather mechanical translation of the question which could be mastered in all of 5 minutes. And actually holding a dialogue in complete sentences as an adult is more creepy than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 11:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/7 "2010-01-12T11:35:11Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > The purpose is to teach you from an early age that success in life depends partly on slavishly following pointless rules. This! ---
**Author:** ![picker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/picker/32/13969_2.png) [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/8 "2010-01-12T12:11:57Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > This! I think you mean 'This is the reason you must answer in complete sentences." ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/9 "2010-01-12T12:32:59Z")
Simple one word answers are at the lowest levels of educational attainment and they do not give much for the teacher to assess. Forming a proper sentence allows the learner to put more of themselves into the answer, for example, “The fence was white, so white that when the sun shone it stood out in the whole street, everyone could see our house from miles away” This would give the teacher so much more to assess the ability and attitude of the child. So in answer, the formulaic response is not much use either, and betrays a weakness in the teaching method, also in the assessment, and probably in terms of time and syllabus. Students need to be able to personalise their responses, this has been proven to be a better way to ensure the material has been learnt. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/10 "2010-01-12T12:49:51Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > That would have annoyed the hell out of me. I’d probably answer it like so: > > _“White” is the answer to the question that you asked._ Short and sweet: “It’s white.” ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/11 "2010-01-12T12:59:29Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > Simple one word answers are at the lowest levels of educational attainment and they do not give much for the teacher to assess. True. > [@casdave](#): > > Forming a proper sentence allows the learner to put more of themselves into the answer, for example, > > “The fence was white, so white that when the sun shone it stood out in the whole street, everyone could see our house from miles away” > > This would give the teacher so much more to assess the ability and attitude of the child. Although it would be better expressed as: **Chapter 42 - The Whiteness of the Fence.** ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/12 "2010-01-12T15:30:43Z")
While the exercise may have seemed pointless and obvious to you, you are not the entire class. From the other side, the teacher, along with every other responsible adult who devised tests for your school, undoubtedly saw that certain pupils absolutely required the instruction to write in complete sentences, even if that meant something as simple to you as figuring out how to turn around a question and phrase it as a complete answer. Teachers can’t - or shouldn’t - teach either to the top of the class or the bottom of the class. They have to aim for about the middle and try to accommodate the extremes. Sometimes that means the best students will be bored and sometimes that means the worst students will be lost. And all too often, judging from the continuous series of remarks here about school, that means that people don’t get that school wasn’t about them, but about the class. Or even the entire cohort of people in your grade for the entire school system or even the state. Yeah, it would be nice if schooling could be individually personalized. That doesn’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/13 "2010-01-12T15:34:47Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Although it would be better expressed as: > > **Chapter 42 - The Whiteness of the Fence.** The fence felt the unbearable whiteness of being. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/14 "2010-01-12T15:43:13Z")
'Cause, you know. Even adults. Not the best with complete sentences. And stuff. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/15 "2010-01-12T15:44:49Z")
The OP’s question does evoke, however, the nature of the event - a quiz, test, or some other type of assignment. And some teachers do not know how to probe for or identify the depth and richness of a student’s understanding beyond asking a question with a one-word recall type answer, which only provides minimal insight. IF the OP were subjected to this type of assessment exclusively, or even predominantly, I think it does reflect to some degree the paucity of imagination and skill on the part of the teachers. However, there is one other way of thinking about this. If the teacher is asking a question that requires some degree of thought and reflection, then a complete sentence will clarify any response from a student, where a one-word answer or simple phrase will not communicate to the teacher what the students was thinking. Therefore, a teacher will require that the student make clear her answer so that the teacher is not in the position of trying to be a mind-reader. How much time should a teacher spend listening to students claiming, “Well, that’s what I MEANT,” when their answers are incomplete or ambiguous? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/16 "2010-01-12T15:52:44Z")
> [@Joe Frickin Friday](#): > > Short and sweet: > > “It’s white.” Uhhhhhhh, the fence is, like, all white and stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/angel_of_the_lord/32/2949_2.png) [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Angel_of_the_Lord)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/17 "2010-01-12T15:58:06Z")
Now that my lame attempt at a joke is finished, I can chime in. Some of my teachers did this, too. It drove me absolutely batty. I hated writing things out. I hated the mundanity of the task. I hated that it forced me to restate information that would be assumed by any sane individual. When I got older, I tried what **AHunter3** suggested. No dice. I also tried **Joe Frickin Friday** approach. Also no dice. This bugged me for years. I’ve just recently sussed it out. My thoughts go as follows: 1.) Most of the people in my class were not as academically inclined as me, and may have needed the practice. 2.) School is just as much about thinking and behavior as it is about memorizing answers. They wanted us to think about how to make complete sentences. They also wanted us to learn how to follow instructions and do as we were told. This latter bit, incidentally, is likely why the entire exercise drove me goddamn insane. 3.) Requiring some amount of uniformity likely makes it easier for the teacher to eliminate ambiguity in grading. This makes it easier for the teacher overall. As **Exapno Mapcase** said, this is all teaching to the middle. Teaching to the middle is great in theory. But for those on either side of the spectrum, it is inefficient and maddening. As far as I’m concerned, the ideal solution would be to allow for classes to be based on ability rather than random assignment. . .but then you get into whether that’s the best socially for young kids, and how much does it cost, and what about the people who are on the cusp, or who are still outliers. . . ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/18 "2010-01-12T16:07:41Z")
> [@Angel\_of\_the\_Lord](#): > > …As far as I’m concerned, the ideal solution would be to allow for classes to be based on ability rather than random assignment. . . I don’t want to change this to a debate on ability grouping, but I want to point out the falacy in that commonly held position - namely, that you could meet everyone’s needs and abilities if you just had a class that had people of common ability. First, there’s really no good way to determine (or even define) learning ability. That no two people have identical abilities, let alone 15, 20 or 30 of them, is the problem. In any group, there will be some who get one concept or another quicker or more meaningfully than others. There is no way to teach to YOU unless it’s a one-on-one situation. Which public school is not. If you have a class of three people, someone will “get it” first. Someone, last. In a homogeneous class of 25, the range is much narrower than a heterogeneous class, but there is still a bell-shaped curve of abilities, talents, and proclivities that feed into the mix that is How (and how much) Children Learn. Nope, the answer is not grouping practices. It’s about the teacher. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/19 "2010-01-12T16:19:32Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > While the exercise may have seemed pointless and obvious to you, you are not the entire class. From the other side, the teacher, along with every other responsible adult who devised tests for your school, undoubtedly saw that certain pupils absolutely required the instruction to write in complete sentences, even if that meant something as simple to you as figuring out how to turn around a question and phrase it as a complete answer. > > Teachers can’t - or shouldn’t - teach either to the top of the class or the bottom of the class. They have to aim for about the middle and try to accommodate the extremes. Sometimes that means the best students will be bored and sometimes that means the worst students will be lost. > > And all too often, judging from the continuous series of remarks here about school, that means that people don’t get that school wasn’t about them, but about the class. Or even the entire cohort of people in your grade for the entire school system or even the state. Yeah, it would be nice if schooling could be individually personalized. That doesn’t happen. I accept all this, I was just curious which principle it was emphasizing towards the “middle” of the class. I mostly remember this in reading comprehension assignments where you had to read a passage and then answer a bunch of questions. The answers to every question were designed to be an unambiguous, one word answers. The teachers were no looking for anything but a mechanical rephrasing of the question to append to it. Any attempt to deviate from this script was marked down. As much as I overestimate the intelligence of my peers, I have a hard time believing even the dumbest child would not find this trivial to master. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638/20 "2010-01-12T16:51:01Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > As much as I overestimate the intelligence of my peers, I have a hard time believing even the dumbest child would not find this trivial to master. I don’t. I think it’s commonplace. I think it’s been commonplace forever. Here’s an excerpt from Roger Angell’s memoir _Let Me Finish_. > [@](#): > > When I entered the armament school, about half our section had gone to college, with a couple of grad students thrown in; everyone else had finished high school. By the time I began teaching, six months later, there were no college guys in the incoming group, and over the next eight months … the class I.Q. plunged downhill. When fewer and fewer of the students seemed able to pass the weekly tests, tests were abandoned. When it was noticed that half the students were falling asleep in their chairs, the chairs were removed, and we lectured on, six hours at a stretch, to G.I.'s sitting cross-legged on the floor or out on their feet, with elbows propped in a window frame. Some of them didn’t know the difference between the numbers ten and zero. We instructors, smoking together in ten-minute breaks, talked about this in low tones and wondered whether the service rosters were going to be good enough to carry us to the end. We’d seen the bottom of the barrel. People talk about the bell curve, but without fully grasping what that implies. If you assume a standard normal distribution with IQ set at 100, then 34.1% of the population has IQ’s between 84 and 100. Another 13.6 percent will have IQ’s between 68 and 84. That’s almost half the population, not a few special dumb individuals. You can’t hide half the population away. They will be half your school. They may not be half of your particular class, but unless you’re in all honor classes [or whatever your local term is], they’ll be mixed in with you. Teachers have to account for them, have to make special efforts for them. Doing so and boring you hurts you less than ignoring their needs does them. You can’t escape this. Everybody is different and everybody learns differently and everybody proceeds at different rates, and everybody has some subjects, topics, concepts, skills on which they are superior and some on which they are inferior. There is always something that is non-trivial, even for the brightest student, even though that something others grasp instantly. This is why teachers don’t get no respect, nowise. 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-pedagogical-value-of-complete-sentences/524638.md?page=2)