Taking Sentences Apart

One of my favorite activities in 4th grade English class was diagramming sentences.

This seems to be a forgotten art, like cursive writing, no longer taught. That's too bad.

Not only does the diagramming of sentences help students understand and perhaps correct the grammar in sentences they speak or write, it can be useful in studying other languages. I discovered this use of diagramming quite by accident in 1961 when I tried to explain to a fellow student of Russian the function of the dative case. After that, I continued to use sentence diagramming to make sure I understood newly encountered structures of the language.

Imagine my pleasure when I came across a post in New York Times Opinionator section extolling the lost art of diagramming. You can read it here. An earlier post on the same subject here gives a bit of the history. This is a purely American invention.