We are using an English/Grammar curriculum that is very heavy on diagramming sentences. I am bored to death by it as are my girls. We all dread pulling it out. I am contemplating changing to something with less diagramming (more $ down the drain), but don't want to miss something. Before I started hsing, I could never have diagrammed a sentence, was I missing out on something and not aware of it? So my question is, how important is it to know how to diagram?
I have always wondered what the importance of this is. I've been out of High School 23 yrs. and have never needed it. So, I can't wait to hear what others have to say.
Having taught secondary English, I can truly say I've had to answer that question a lot. Diagramming promotes a different way of looking at something. It's a brain exercise in taking a whole and breaking it down, compartmentalizing it. And, for a very few students, it actually does help them visually figure out parts of speech. Obviously, there are plenty of puzzles and activities out there that can train the brain to do the same thing, but that's why I taught it. I was never super obsessive about it, but I did feel like it was worth doing [since I taught in a school environment and had no idea if they were getting the same kind of brain exercise anywhere outside of class].
I think it is useful and helpful for some kids depending on how they learn. If your child learns the concepts well without it I don't see the necessity.
I've always been against diagramming, but after doing it with R&S, I'm finding it's very helpful. When they're having trouble determining if a word is a adverb or adjective, we can diagram it, and they see what word it "modifies", and then they know the correct answer. I think R&S, while they stress diagramming, doesn't do it EXCLUSIVELY. So it's not as if you MUST diagram every day. They just throw it in when they introduce something new, or ask you to do it every now and then to review.
I personally LOVED diagramming sentences in school! LOL But, can't say I've used that skill a day in my life until last last week when introducing parts of speech LOL Nor have I ever had to identify any part of speech. Unless your girls want to be a journalist or writer or some other profession that is heavy on proper writing, I'd not worry too much about it. Also-look into free resources if money is an issue. Here's a couple of good ones that come to mind right off the bat... http://www.sfreading.com/resources/ghb.html http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp
I NEVER learned diagramming in school and it did not seem to matter much. I still got A's on my papers in high school and college. We have not gotten to that yet, but when we are ready I will probably teach them some basics of diagramming but not much, unless it is really helping them.
I also LOVE diagramming. To me it shows that the sentence is complete and everything has its purpose. My kids find it easy too. Of course you don't diagram anymore as an adult but when I need to write formal papers I glance through it checking my sentence structure. I would say if they understand it then move on.
Yes! I love R&S. If your kids are really moving easily through the diagramming, you don't have to do all of them.
Well, I could have been the OP writing this question. In fact, I asked a ps friend of mine how much diagramming her son was doing to gauge how important it was. I either don't remember learning it or I never did. I hate it. My daughter hates it. Once they start looking like ridiculous spider webs I broke down and told her she's probably never going to need to do this as an adult. We skip a lot of it now.
GASP! There is someone else on the planet who loves it too! I've never met anyone in real life who likes it!
I got all the way through school, college, and grad school without ever once being asked to diagram a sentence. Except for once in high school, a teacher couldn't believe we'd never done it and tried to teach it to us then -- but it was too foreign to us by that time. We DID, though, do the parsing thing, where you label every single word in the sentence (underline the subject once, the verb twice, put parentheses around prepositional phrases, box around the appositive phrase, label the Prep, OP, DO, IO, adj, adv, noun of address, articles, conjunctions, interjections, whatever else....) until we were blue in the face... which is the same thing only without the framework structure. After I did learn it, as an adult, I loved it! We're using CLE and R&S, which both teach diagramming. Although it takes up more room on the paper than parsing, it's easier to see how the words actually relate to each other than parsing, and easier to read on the page.
You sound like me last year or the year before, I had not diagrammed the extent that BJU does it. But I learned a lot! My ds is a great writer now at 13, he catches even peoples speech mistakes in sentences. etyc.
Diagramming sentences makes my hair itch! I see no point in it and my kids have learned parts of speech in other ways. I'd skip it entirely if you can.
I am not alone. I loved diagramming. To me it was just do it and get it done and voila! I think it is like a puzzle and I like jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles and all that even now. I also like math. Did you (or do you still) like math also?
Oh no! I HATE math! (but I have dyscalculia) Now I like doing math when I'm shopping and find a sale.....LOL
I'm wondering if anybody has any good arguments as to why sentence diagramming would possibly be necessary. I would really, really like to know.
I love diagramming too, but I don't think it is "necessary." No one needs to know how to diagram sentences in real life (except English teachers), but we all need to know how to use language correctly. I found it very helpful personally, because it is visual. Also,it gave order to a language that had seemed disorderly to me. I always thought it was fun! However, if a student really hated it, I would think it would loose most of its effectiveness as a teaching tool and another approach would be better.
