A friend of mine posted this article about diagramming sentences to Facebook the other day, so here's the simple question: did any of you enjoy diagramming sentences or think it a worthwhile thing to learn? For my part, I hated it with an utter passion. I thought it a complete waste of time that didn't do a single thing to teach what good writing is. I am, however, also prepared to grant that my loathing of diagramming may be influenced by the fact that the teacher I had in seventh grade, who did the most with diagramming in my school career, happened to be one of my least-favorite teachers of my entire grade-school career. It's interesting to me how perceptions of entire subjects can be shaped by our reaction to the teachers who taught them. Sentence diagramming? Bleecccch. And trigonomery -- now there's a teacher I couldn't abide!
So, did any of you enjoy diagramming sentences?
The personal blog of author Kelly Sedinger, chronicling the adventures of one overalls-clad wanderer.
4 comments:
I loved it! It was the only time I raised and waved my hand to be sent to the board to show how it was done.
Yes, it helped me distinguish between direct objects, indirect objects. Loved those prepositional phrases!
Seriously.
Loved it. Still do it from time to time; it is the best way to parse a statute. It's also really helpful when you are trying to figure out why something you've written doesn't seem to say what you mean it to say.
There's plenty I was taught back then that will still make me break out in panic sweat, but diagramming sentences turned out to be a thing that was actually useful.
I didn't enjoy it and never really understood it until I started taking foreign languages. It took Latin and Spanish to teach me the difference between a direct and indirect object.
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