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Sentence diagramming and composition
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I’ve been looking at Susan Wise Bauer’s Writing With Ease, and the instructor’s text introduction talks about the various stages of preparing students to write well. In her discussion of years 5-8, she states the following:
“The primary tool that students will use to order ideas on the sentence level is diagramming. The middle-school student will learn to think critically about the structure of his sentences; he will use diagramming as a tool to fix weak sentences. Weak sentences reveal problems in thinking.
A sentence which fits logically together is a sentence which is written in good style (poor style is most often the result of fuzzy thinking). Now that the student can get sentences down on paper, he needs to sharpen and focus them. Whenever a sentence doesn’t “sound right” to him, he should examine the logical relationships between the parts of the sentence. Diagramming the sentence lays the logic of the sentence bare.”
My question is this: have you seen this to be true of your students? My DD14 has tended to view sentence diagramming as a chore to be tolerated and one that will not be of use in the future. I seriously doubt that she sees it as a means to the end result of writing better sentences. I must admit that I recall little of diagramming sentences from my junior high years (and I don’t recall ever doing it in high school), and so I can’t say how much it has helped me to write better sentences.
I took my dd10 (9 at the time) half-way through First Language Lessons 3, which was pretty much ALL diagramming. She got to the point where she wasn’t retaining a single thing. I got to thinking, “Okay, I was an AP English student, blew the English portion of the ACT out of the water, and do not remember diagramming a single sentence, EVER. Is this worth it?” Needless to say, we are done with that! I have not written Writing With Ease off completely, as I like the summarization and narration help, but we are done with formal grammar/diagramming for a while. We will most likely do AG in a year or two and go from there.
My oldest daughter scored a near perfect score on the ACT without ever having diagrammed a single sentence. No, I do not think it is necessary. In college, she did have to do diagramming and she thought it was kind of interesting.
My daughter who is now 11 loved diagramming when we did it in FLL-3. Do I think it made her a better writer? No.
My 10 year old son is a completely different kind of thinker. I have never done diagramming with him, but I can see that he might benefit from it. At some later point in time, much later, I will evaluate whether or not it is something we will try out.
This is one of those areas where I feel free to throw out the parts of any given curriculum that aren’t working for us while retaining the parts that are.
I do remember doing some diagramming in jr. high and some in senior. I found it easy, but personally, I don’t think it really is necessary, either. I think, for the most part, children who are active readers recognize good writing and don’t tend to struggle with grammatical errors that “sound” wrong, such as verb/tense disagreemements.
Does Writing With Ease use diagramming, or is that just the First Language Lessons? Do you have to use them together?
OK, I have an English degree and I like sentence diagramming.
BUT, I liken it to proofs in geometry. What is the point???
I have forced (yes, it was like that) my oldest son, 14, to do some diagramming with his R&S Book 7 text, but he doesn’t like it. I have done it b/c I felt like his understanding of sentence structure and even some basic parts of speech was very lacking.
However, I don’t make him do a lot of sentences and the ones he does, we correct as needed together. Otherwise, I know he isn’t getting anything out of it.
I say a little goes a long way on the diagramming, and if your child is a natural writer they probably don’t need any of it.
Isn’t AG full of diagramming? I remember watching one of the videos and thinking it was going to be way too much for our lking. But maybe I’m thinking of something else?
4myboys, My understanding is that the whole WWE and WWS series is strictly Writing. It doesn’t include any diagramming to my knowledge. The only grammar I’ve seen is what naturally occurs in the writing (commas and the like) and the occasional pointing out of a certain part of speech. You do not need to use FLL with WWE. We do not use FLL.
4myboys~pslively is correct. WWE is narration, dication, summarization, writing. FLL is diagramming/more intense grammer. And you absolutely do not have to use the two together!
I learned sentence diagramming and I think it is a good tool for older children to understand how sentences are constructed. It can be helpful to not only realize a sentence sounds wrong, but to know why and how to fix it. I appreciated the skill in high school. I think overuse at too young of an age will cause it to be seen as a chore and not a useful skill. I plan to begin grammar with my son when he turns 10, but I think diagramming could safely wait until 7th grade or so. To me it is a puzzle and an exercise in clear thinking. Excessive use would probably turn it into tedious and dull busywork.
Tara
I was an English Lit major in college and also did very well on the ACT in English – but I really do not ‘get’ diagramming.
I think it could be a useful tool for an upper level (high school) student, if they enjoy it. In my opinion, it would benefit an extremely logical, analytical thinker best.
In my opinion, so much of proper grammar is absorbed through good reading that I think diagramming is overthinking it a bit. Just a thought.
I’m with Tara. I myself use sentence diagramming often, in my own writing, and in trying to untangle the writing of others. I find it particularly useful in reading Scripture and modern writers who don’t always construct their sentences well. I think diagramming skills are CRITICAL in thinking about language enough to do higher level work in another language. I teach all my kids to diagram, wouldn’t think of skipping it, and we always approach it as a very useful puzzle. I do it in the preparatory years right before high school where I expect high level writing.
Diagramming can very much help with composition. Try it the next time you have a sentence that just isn’t fitting right. The trouble spot usually shows itself fairly quickly once you start to diagram it.
The diagramming in Analytical Grammar was what helped my dd#2 finally understand the parts of a sentence. So we got a double use from diagramming for her.
I agree that it is an important skill taught at the middle school level.
Bookworm – Your point about diagramming being critical to foreign language (for complete mastery) is an excellent one! I find languages very easy to learn. I first study the basic grammar, tenses, and sentence structure and then start gathering vocabulary. For example I learned Dutch very quickly because their sentences structure is subject – verb – object (like English) but because I understood that they positioned adverbs differently and didn’t use auxiliaries I didn’t make common mistakes most Americans make. Yes, I could tell just by listening to myself if my sentence in Dutch was right or wrong but being able to identify that I wrongly inserted an auxiliary or positioned my adverb awkwardly helped me know how to fix it.
Perhaps most people may never miss it if they don’t learn it, but it is a nice tool to have in your pocket. It’s one of those things that if taught clearly and in an interesting manner will take very little time to learn and you will never forget the simple procedure. If, however, it is boring and repetitive you will block it out! Lol! I would be interested in recommended resources for teaching it so it is interesting (for future reference). I always figured I would have already taught the parts of speech so I would just take a sentence from one of our books and demonstrate and then say “You try it!” 🙂 I have my own little way I do it so I would probably just teach them that way. By the way, after declaring my love for sentence structure I feel the need to proofread my posts and make sure all my sentences are perfect lol! But I’m typing on my iPhone and decided not to. 🙂
Tara
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