How do your kids USE sentence diagramming?

[anabelneri]

Hello!  I have a practical question.

 

Many of us here have been teaching our kids how to diagram sentences (myself included).  I didn't learn to diagram sentences in school, so I'm wondering how your kids use their diagramming skills (other than to do their grammar assignment)?

 

(I'm considering leaving the diagramming groupies to join the full-time MCT groupies to simplify life)

 

Thanks!

[TXBeth]

I my opinion, the most important application for sentence diagramming is clear and correct writing. I think MCT's 4-level analysis would probably have the same effect, although I'm not sure it emphasizes the relationships between sentence parts as well as more traditional diagramming.

[Elfknitter.#]

We don't diagram. I never heard of it before WTM. My Catholic-schooled mom does not remember it fondly and I was surprised when she mentioned it as I was telling her about dd's grammar.

 

Given that, I do not see what it's use outside of grammar might be. I could see it's usefulness in learning a foreign language, but that still falls under grammar to me. Given that, MCT's analysis would also be helpful in foreign language grammar. Otherwise,mI'm at a loss.

[Guest CoralMoore]

For proper diagram formation, the basics of the child should be clear. He will be able to frame things efficiently if his concepts are clear. Pay attention to the concepts, I am sure that he will be successful in few days.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I think of it as just a very visual way of doing grammar and sentence structure analysis. 

 

To me, it makes grammar a much more understandable and interesting subject.  I LOVED when we did diagramming when I was a kid.  It is a way of making language more "scientific" or precise, in my mind. 

 

But no, since reaching adulthood, I have the need to diagram anything.  :-)  But sometimes when a sentence just doens't sound pretty, I can think of the different clauses and see if they are of similar style, or check for s-v agreement, etc. 

 

What surprises me is that as a French-learner, I think diagramming would have been very helpful to learning French, and yet the French don't diagram their sentences!  I'm debating about creating a "French diagramming" method for my kids. 

[Twigs]

Some good thoughts in this thread Is it important for a child to know how to...

 

Anabel,

 

Would you mind adding tags to this thread?

 

Grammar

Diagram

Diagramming

 

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Thanks! 

[Karen in CO]

My older dd started diagramming this year. She told me at the beginning that it was hard and pointless. After a few weeks when she was diagramming more complex sentences, she exclaimed that it helped her understand the structure of the sentence better. It is a visual way to represent not only the parts of speech used in the sentence but also how the pieces of a sentence relate to each other. It does not have a utilitarian purpose such as learning to make a proper roux or change a tire. It does help students, especially logic-age students, see the structure of sentences and visualize grammar.

[Clear Creek]

When my daughter hands me a paper and there is a sentence fragment or awkwardly worded sentence in it, I ask her to diagram the sentence.  It helps her see the problem with the sentence and how to fix it.

 

That is my practical use for diagramming.

[KrissiK]

I think part of the problem with modern education is our insistence that everything be hands-on practical. Hence the 15 year old whining, "but why do I have to study algebra? When am I ever gonna use it in real life?" And Mom quizzically scratching her head and admitting that no, she's never had to use algebra in real life, but somehow she knows it's important to do. I do think there is a practical aspect to ,diagramming in that you learn to analyze a sentence and understand the correct workings of each part of speech. Helps in writing, helps in understanding the English language. However, I believe it develops critical thinking skills, which is incredibly important. A child learns to look at a complex sentence, take it down to it's bare bones (simple subject, simple predicate) and then take the leftovers and organize it logically. It's a mental exercise. And this kind of thinking is practical in every aspect of life. Same reason I want my kids to study Latin. I mean, there's lots of reasons I think studying Latin is important, but analysis of a language is a very important skill that is practical to every aspect of your life. It's a transferable skill. And that's the same reason we study Algebra. Although my engineer husband could point out the various ways we actually do use algebra in our daily life.

[Crimson Wife]

I had to spend the better part of an evening giving my youngest brother a crash course in diagramming several years ago (before I had even started homeschooling). He had asked me for feedback on his college honors thesis and there were so many grammar & syntax mistakes I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. One would expect a first draft to have a certain number of errors but almost every single sentence had at least one major mistake. He acknowledged that what he had written didn't sound correct, but couldn't figure out how to fix it. I said that often when I knew a sentence wasn't correct, diagramming it helped me to figure out the mistake(s). He didn't know how to diagram as the old school English teachers who had taught me had retired before he had reached middle school. After I taught him diagramming, he thanked me profusely and expressed regret that he hadn't learned it earlier in his academic career.

 

My oldest was only a toddler at the time, but I vowed that I would make sure she learned sentence diagramming so that she wouldn't end up like my brother. My brother was always a big reader and a bright guy (scored >700 on the verbal portion of the SAT). Somehow he'd managed to earn B's in honors English classes throughout high school despite his weakness in writing. Maybe those would've been A's had he gotten proper grammar instruction during middle school.

[Crimson Wife]

I know there are some slight limitations to MCT's methods over diagramming.  Someone once tried to explain it to me, but I found the explanation so complicated that it wasn't useful.  I am sure it is because I don't know how to diagram everything though.

MCT's 4 line analysis wouldn't help in fixing sentence structure issues (like misplaced modifiers). In sentence diagramming, it is made explicit which words are being modified by which phrases. So I can very easily tell whether a phrase is in the wrong place.

[Spy Car]

Personally I think MCTs method is a vast improvement over diagramming for teaching the underlying grammar concepts (and that is the important thing). Once a child understand the parts of speech, parts of a sentence, phrases, and clauses, diagramming basic sentences is a breeze.

 

It took about 10 minutes to teach my son the basics of diagramming when he was midway through Practice Island. And he did many of the sentences both ways, just for fun. Same with Practice Town.

 

As sentence become more literary, complex, and difficult the skills to do both 4 Level Analysis or Diagramming will need to evolve to keep pace. But Wendy made the salient point, it is good to start this early. At a time the children accept it was a natural part of their education and not as "blah, blah, blah" that could not be less interesting to their newly hormone-addled minds.

 

MCT makes learning the grammar joyful!

 

His is an utterly interesting and inspiring program. If, for some reason, diagramming is something that feels important to you know that it is a piece of cake to pick up when you understand the concepts as thoroughly as taught in MCT. At that point "diagramming" is just about learning a few conventions. Easy.

 

Bill

[Kalmia]

I think it is David Mulroy in The War Against Grammar who makes the additional claim that diagramming helps with reading as well as with writing. For difficult sentences such as this:

"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." (Declaration of Independence)

having a thorough knowledge of grammar and in particular diagramming will allow the student to puzzle out the relationship between the phrases and clauses and the subject and verb. This will assist them in unlocking the meaning of the sentence. Without a visual framework to hang all these phrases and clauses upon, one loses track of where they go!

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Against-Grammar-CrossCurrents-Series/dp/0867095512/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373051168&sr=8-1&keywords=the+war+on+grammar

 

p.s. MCT is a great way to begin grammar studies. I adore his materials and I adore his passion for language. Super easy to add diagramming in to his program. There is even a handy "Notes" space at the bottom of the practice pages in which a the diagrams will fit.

[happymomofboys]

Some textbooks have you parse sentences by circling and underlining.  I prefer diagramming because it's more visual.  I didn't learn diagramming until late middle-early high school.  Then, it was used primarily for demonstrating why a sentence wasn't grammatically correct as written.  I would say it is more of a logic stage activity when used for that purpose.  The work done in the early grades is more for the purposes of introduction to parts of speech.

[LBoogie]

I am one of those freaks who finds diagramming fun. Loved it in high school.

 

But then, I also enjoy picking ticks off of dogs.

 

I might not be trustworthy.

[linders]

I actually made DS12 diagram a few of the sentences he drafted for IEW this past year so he could see why his beautiful, creative sentences sounded wrong. He wasn't using parallel structure in different clauses, but couldn't see this until he diagrammed. I've also had both DC use diagramming to pinpoint the core sentence elements, which allowed them to correct subject-verb agreement issues in complex sentences.

[fourisenough]

When teaching comma rules, I've often required my kids to diagram the sentences so they could see where the commas belong and why.  It is especially helpful to determine why a comma is improperly placed; comma splits are very obvious when you know the parts of the sentence and how they work together.

[anabelneri]

Thanks for all of the feedback.  I'll have to consider how to use this... using the bottom of the MCT Practice pages is probably the way we'll go!  The trick is that I don't fully know how to diagram yet; I have Rex Barks but haven't worked through it, and likely won't (that's my realistic side speaking).

 

So it does sound useful.  Okey dokey.

Thank you!

[nansk]

When teaching comma rules, I've often required my kids to diagram the sentences so they could see where the commas belong and why.  It is especially helpful to determine why a comma is improperly placed; comma splits are very obvious when you know the parts of the sentence and how they work together.

 

Can you please give an example of a sentence where diagramming helped identify an improperly placed comma?

 

I have some of the same questions the OP has. I am a visual learner, so I enjoyed learning to diagram a sentence. But I cannot see how it would help with punctuation. And even for the grammar, with the freshman English sentences SWB gives as examples, I can see a way to explain those sort of problems to my dd without diagramming.