Story of Sentence Composing

After a two year research project in which various textbooks on sentence improvement were piloted in Canadian schools, the Canadian Ministry of Education, the agency conducting the project, commented about the textbook series Sentence Composing, published by Boynton/Cook, Heinemann: "The best [textbook on sentence improvement] appears to be the Killgallon series" (Evans, 1987, p. 9).

Another comment from the research study highlights a significant offshoot of the sentence composing approach, namely a heightened awareness for students of literary style:

Throughout the text, the author [Killgallon] emphasizes flexibility, comparison, judgment, and a variety of strategies closely related to effect. In some ways, the [Killgallon] series is an illustrated commentary on contemporary style--and a good one. (page 8)


The seed for the sentence composing approach to writing improvement was planted in September of 1963, my first year as an English teacher, by a student whose inadvertent contribution to the sentence composing approach I will forever acknowledge, a student named Barry.

Barry's Story