Archaic Art of Diagramming

It's not necessary. It's not relevant to real life. We have spell check and grammar check. Society talks incorrectly now anyways; haven't you heard the news recently?

I've heard it all when it comes to teaching grammar. I've also heard what the state standards say (or don't say in all reality) about grammar.

What I do know from my learning and teaching experience is that grammar diagrams should be counted as differentiated learning -- a phrase heavily beat into the vocabulary of new teachers during the certification process.

Students must be able to identify their own writing in order to justify and defend their work. I believe that grammar diagramming is the first step in higher order writing process. Students are no longer composing sentences, but they are learning to proofread and defend the writing process.

What is even more fascinating to me in teaching language arts is that diagramming appeals to my learners who are least likely to love language arts. More specifically, my strongest diagrammers are usually the strongest math students. Why the inverse correlation? I haven't the slightest proof, but I have some ideas.

1) Diagramming stands for more than just a word placement. It's a logical coordination between words and a dependency on the "place value" of a word in a sentence. If one word is out of place, all the other words following will topple over too.

2) Diagramming is "check-able". Students must not only link words in progressive order, but they must be able to explain their work by checking -- as in math. I constantly encourage students to read their diagrams back to themselves to see that there were no "careless errors" in forgetting an easy article. Many students will get on a roll when they understand the general framework of the sentence diagram; however, I remind them mastery is in the detail.

3) Diagramming is order and allows the abstract to become concrete. Students often feel that language is subjective. Diagramming allows them to follow rules of placement.

I tell my students that I expect the strong math students to have the highest grades on their diagramming assessments. The typically strong language arts students feel an ego pinch, and they will do well regardless. The strong math students look at me with panic every time I mention this at the beginning of the year. So far, the pattern is still true: the strongest math students are my strongest diagrammers.

Another boost for diagramming:

Students are forced to get down and dirty with their English language. I lay on the diagramming thick between grades 6-8 -- or just before students go on to study a second language. From my learning experience mastering the English sentence began with the basics of diagramming but truly peaked with the study of a second language. How can you begin another language without knowing the parts of your own? In upper middle school, my strongest grammar students were also those who began a second language in the 8th grade.

This year my 4th graders are able to diagram: Subjects, Verbs (Action, Linking, Helping), compound subjects and verbs, compound sentences, adjectives, article, adverbs, direct objects, predicate nouns and adjectives.

The 6th graders are able to diagram all of the above in longer, complex forms with the addition of indirect objects and prepositional phrases.

I still hope in schools there will be a diagramming revival for students and teachers alike.