The Reception of Mark by John II?

I have a busy semester teaching second semester Greek and tutoring undergrads for a intro NT course, but conveniently the lesson coming up is on similarities and differences between John and the Synoptics and I was provided a few links that helpfully introduce this topic here and here.  A few posts ago I noted the patristic view that John wrote to supplement the Synoptic Gospel, but modern critical scholarship goes back and forth between John’s dependence or independence on them.  If independent, the similarities in the general outline and in several individual stories may perhaps be accounted for by some shared oral or written sources, including what many form critics believed was a pre-Markan passion narrative (note how many of Mark’s individual units seem like they could have been passed down independently but the Passion narrative is a smooth, interconnected narrative) that may explain why the narratives of Mark and John converge more here.  Recently, I have the impression that scholarship seems to be swinging back to the view that John knew and was dependent on at least Mark with some specialized studies trying to demonstrate an intertextual connection such as agreement in literary order/unique vocabulary or other alleged Markan redactional features showing up in John (thanks to Ed Babinski for emailing some of these sources to me).  What do you think is the solution?

• Barrett, C.K. The Gospel According to St John.  Second Edition; London: SPCK, 1978.
• Bauckham, Richard.  “John for Readers of Mark.”  Pages 147-71 in The Gospels for All Christians.  Edited by Richard Bauckham.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
• Kurek-Chomycz, Dominika A.. “The Fragrance of Her Perfume: The Significance of Sense Imagery in John’s Account of the Anointing in Bethany.”  Novum Testamentum 52 (2010): 334-354.
• Dvorak, James D.  “The Relationship between John and the Synoptic Gospels.”  JETS 41 (1998): 201-213.
• Goodacre, Mark.  “Dating the crucial sources in early Christianity.” Paper presented at Cross, Resurrection and Diversity in Earliest Christianity Consultation, SBL Annual Meeting, Boston, November 21-24, 2008.
• Hunt, Stephen A.  Rewriting the Feeding of Five Thousand:  John 6.1-15 as a test case for Johannine dependence on the Synoptic Gospels.  New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011.
• Neirynck, F.  “John and the Synoptics.”  Pages 73-106 in L’évangile de Jean.  Edited by M. de Jonge.  Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1977.
• Sim, David C.  “Matthew’s Use of Mark: Did Matthew Intend to Supplement or to Replace His Primary Source?” New Testament Studies 57 (2011): 176 – 192.
• Smith, D.M.  John Among the Gospels: The Relationship in the Twentieth Century.  Second Edition.  Columbia: University of South Carolina, D. M. Smith, 2001.
• Some helpful blog posts or online resources on the subject are found here, here, here, here (please add your post in the comments below if you have written anything on this topic)