Can you or your children diagram a sentence?

[NMAmy]

We had Roberts English back in the early '70's so I was never taught to diagram a sentence. I don't feel upset about this. I think I've gotten along fine without it over the years even though I do a lot of proofreading for my job. I don't think dd ever learned how, either.

 

[Disneylover99]

I've been teaching for over twenty years. I've never heard of this.

 

[ronandannette]

12 years of public education (in Canada) and several technical writing classes in University and I've never even heard of sentence diagraming before this thread. I was quite surprised to see what it was all about when I clicked your link. I can't say I feel a deficit in not having that skill though - it actually seems more math-related to me. Identifying the parts of a sentence (which I presume is taught in all primary schools) is what's important for understanding grammar; not organizing them into a little chart.

 

[Aliceacc]

But I can do long division of polynomials . And I'm a whiz at Geometric proofs!

 

[Christine]

Like others, I spent my entire 7th grade diagramming sentences. Every day. I thought, at the time, it was ridiculous but when you diagram and think about it everyday, proper sentence structure when writing almost become second nature.

Now, today, I don't think I could do it at all but I remember being in high school and thinking (besides typing class), diagramming sentences was the one skill that I thought worthy.

I'm not surprised they don't do it now. I'm sure there's some better way to teach sentence structure.

 

[Kitty 34]

We had to do that ALL the time in school so yes it's etched into my brain. My sons probably don't have a clue how!!

 

[Christine]

I've been teaching for over twenty years. I've never heard of this.

In the scheme of the age of folks on this board, that's not very long!!! It was probably 1977 when I was doing it. I feel like it sort of stopped after that. I know my mother had to do it. My kids did not.

 

[acebatonfan]

Nope. I ended up learning more about English structure/grammar in German class than in English. When German articles are heavily based off the noun's case (der vs. den vs. dem vs. des. for the nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases respectively for a masculine noun), you get pretty good at identifying different parts of a sentence.

 

[kimblebee]

I was never taught how to but I could pick out the verb, noun, adverb, if I had to. It's when you get to subject modifiers and dangling stuff that it starts to get iffy..

 

[RedAngie]

I haven't done so, nor heard it mentioned, in about 40 years, but I'm sure I can pick it up again fairly quickly. I doubt DDs were ever exposed to it.

 

[Lilacs4Me]

I learned - Catholic school in the 80's, and I think I could probably pass with flying colors, but I can almost 100% for sure say that my kids have never heard of this. DD11 is in 6th grade advanced reading/writing and DS15 is in Honors Eng 10 - I don't even think they teach the advanced classes how to diagram.

 

[AppleDumpling]

I learned it in elementary school, 4th or 5th grade. From what I can recall, probably had lessons on it for a few weeks and then never again. I don't really remember it enough to do it now. I've always been good at grammar and writing but don't think this helped.

As far as I know, it is no longer taught in schools around here and hasn't been for many years.

 

[mnrose]

I was an expert in elementary school, but haven't used it much since then. So, much like differential equations (I aced it, BTW) which I learned and never used again after college, it is no longer front of mind in my brain. I've filled it up with other stuff instead. That was the stuff that my brain trimmed.

 

[Clio]

I can. I wen to school in the 60's and we did a lot of diagramming sentences back then. I think my daughter can. She was an English major in college.
Liz

 

[elphaba91]

We never diagrammed sentences like that at school (maybe it's not done in Australian schools?), but I was a linguistics major in my BA so I can do a syntax tree, which is a similar idea but a bit more complex.

 

[Mkrop]

I am 46 and I diagrammed sentences in Catholic school. DH is 52 and he diagrammed sentences in public school. Both DS18 and DS13 have learned/are learning to diagram sentences. Ds13 did a lot of that in 6th grade so I had to review so I could help him at times. I think it is a very useful skill

 

[DisneyOma]

Probably not. And I'm a teacher. Don't know why I or my children would need to. DD19 is a successful college sophomore who excels at writing without this skill.

From the lower standards we've set in the United States, I'm not surprised. The children's books I read back in the 70's had more complicated, intricate sentence structure than the "literature" that's out there now.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

We spent WAY too much time on it when I was a kid. My kids never learned.

It was an "okay" way to learn simple grammar in 3rd grade, but as we moved to more complicated sentences, it became more about learning the diagram than about learning the grammar.

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Like others, I spent my entire 7th grade diagramming sentences. Every day. I thought, at the time, it was ridiculous but when you diagram and think about it everyday, proper sentence structure when writing almost become second nature.

Now, today, I don't think I could do it at all but I remember being in high school and thinking (besides typing class), diagramming sentences was the one skill that I thought worthy.

I'm not surprised they don't do it now. I'm sure there's some better way to teach sentence structure.

I too ranked typing near the top of the useful things I learned in school. But, I rank sentence diagramming at the very bottom

 

[Hikergirl]

No, I never learned that in school and my kids haven't either.