I am responding to Eduard's question:  
 
> I have a question for you: how can you students identify the simple 
> subject, the simple predicate, and the objects in a sentence if they 
> do not know the parts of speech?
> Eduard 
> 
My answer is to use tag questions. (Is it?)   In 1991, Rei Noguchi explained 
tag questions and answered that question in his NCTE publication, Grammar and 
the Teaching of Writing:  Limits and Possibilities. (Didn't he?)
After a possible sentence or clause, students can add a very short tag 
question that asks only whether the statement is true.  (Can't they?)  The first 
word in the tag question refers to the main predicate (and is usually a 
helping/auxiliary verb or a form of be).  (Does it? (and is it?))
The second word is a pronoun referring to the subject.  (Isn't it?)  If the 
second word is you, but you does not appear in the sentence, the sentence is a 
request/command/imperative or whatever like that you want to call it. (Isn't 
it?)    Often you can add two tag questions, and then the sentence has a 
connector (conjunction) to combine them.  (Can you?  and does it?)   Verbs reporting 
a mental event of feeling, thinking, or stating an idea can add an idea 
directly in  a second complete sentence (clause) included in the main one.  (Can't 
they?)  Such verbs assume (that) the following idea serves as their  object.  
(Don't they?  Does it?)

Some teachers and textbooks have used tag questions for quite some time, and 
in further detail, as needed.  (Haven't they?)  (I explained them in 2000 in 
Meaning First: A Functional Handbook of Fifty Ways to Polish Your Writing, 
Parlaypress.com.)  (Didn't I?)

Carolyn Hartnett
Professor Emeritus, College of the Mainland
2027 Bay Street
Texas City, Texas 77590

Phone and Fax: 409-948-1446
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