Analytical Grammar

I agree with Sonya’s excellent assessment. I’ve been using AG with my 18 & 13 yos this year and it is superb. (We’re currently on “Season Three”.) We work as a group and it takes 30 minutes per day, four days per week. (We do Lessons 1-3 on Monday-Wednesday then test on Thursday.) My 13 yo son actually loves it; it’s a challenge and more like math than English. It is not a Language Arts curriculum. It is succinct and extremely understandable. There have been quite a few discrepancies and little errors, but my children like catching them and discussing why we agree or don’t agree. We’ve occasionally emailed the author, and she is quick to reply. I would not recommend it for anyone younger than 13, as it requires a lot of logic and analysis and I think a lot of the usefulness might be lost if done too young. We’ll be using the High School review sheets over the next few years, to make sure my 13 yo doesn’t forget anything. 🙂

Yes, I think it would be perfectly doable to cover seasons 1 and 2 in one year (Lessons 1-17), especially if the student is catching on pretty easily. You could even take a few weeks off between seasons if you want to.

If you do to their site and scroll to the bottom of the page that explains Analytical Grammar, you’ll see a couple of timeline suggestions. One is a two-year plan that looks similar to what you’ve described. That might give you some more guidelines.

I don’t think AG would be too difficult if you take it at a slower pace. Based on your description, I think the recommended pace of a unit per week with a full page of exercises each day might be too much for him to process well. You might see better progress if you take your time and do only one-half or one-third of the exercises on a page each day. That slower pace would give him more processing time and, hopefully, help with the recall issue. It seems like AG would be ideal for that slower pace since it’s set up to cover only a few units per year. Rather than pushing through them all at once, you could spread them out and go at a pace that works well for him.

Diagramming sentences…..I would like to know the reasoning behind that method as well. My two like to label the words, underline, and cross out the parts of speech. It is a true struggle when asked to diagram. Not sure where they got that from, I used to love diagramming back in the day.

Here’s some thoughts on it: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=315057&highlight=why+diagram.  I love Analytical Grammar for this…succint, not something we have to do all year every year.  HTH some:)  Gina

I know a lot of people who feel there is no value in diagramming.  I, on the other hand, use it frequently, both in writing and even occasionally in reading.  (It is really helpful to me in finding antecedents, figuring out what clauses are subordinate, the relationships between sentence elements–I do it often when reading scripture or eighteenth-century writing.)  I also use diagramming often in my writing, when I have a sentence that is particularly difficult, that I just cannot get to say what I mean, when I am struggling with how to connect two or more ideas.  I love diagramming and have been known to diagram sentences during class and speeches just to keep myself awake.

Why the wildly divergent opinions?  I’m not sure.  It might be a learning-style issue, actually.  Some visual learners, especially those that really identify with maps, graphs, etc., may really benefit from diagramming.  Very analytical thinkers, those who need all the details in order, may also benefit.  And, since diagramming, at least basic diagramming, is really easy to teach, it seems worthwhile to me.  OF my two older sons, one likes diagramming as a tool, and one does not.  I would not have known which one was which originally, however.  Diagramming gives a way to “see” the grammar concepts, and it’s like a puzzle.  The son of mine who likes diagramming is a puzzle-nut; he does logic puzzles and things like that for fun.  I haven’t caught him diagramming me while I speak yet, but he might do it to others, I don’t know.  I know he’s seen me do it and thinks it’s hilarious. 

So, yes, I see value in diagramming, and I do use it to help me with my sentences. I make my kids diagram awkward sentences when they write.   I must confess I’m the only person I know who does that, to be fair to the anti-diagramming crew.  But it’s so easy and fun to teach.  And it might be helpful to some of your children.  You might even have a nutcase like me in your bunch.  In which, by all means, teach her to diagram so she can make sense!  LOL  If you teach it to a child who does not use it much as a tool, not much is lost–they’ll still have that understanding of how sentence parts relate to each other.

One other note–diagramming is one of those things that can break down the English speaker’s resistance to the idea that word order is all important.  Obviously it’s not.  When you have to take those introductory opening clauses and stick them somewhere else BESIDES the first line of the diagram, I think you begin to see that word order is often arbitrary and this can be very useful in foreign language learning.  We often diagram English sentences before translating them into Latin.  Of course, apparently I’m an outlier. 

I am convince.

Thank you so much for talking to me about diagramming. My sister can write very well because she had a wonderful teacher in the 8th grade who spent time on grammar instruction: diagramming. I am jealous that she can write clearly and it makes her sound ‘smarter’.