A response to questions about using diagraming  in English classes

from Dr. Beth Rapp Young



            I haven't any research data, but I do have my experience and 
some information. Diagraming is comforting to the rationalist, and it looks 
systematic and useful. But I would suggest using it only to illustrate a 
method that English teachers used to employ. In the past many students (some 
of mine included) had to learn to draw sticks and trees showing how noun 
clauses functioned as direct objects, etc. But rational-looking diagraming 
frequently became an end in itself. If you choose to diagram, I would 
suggest not doing so without also using generative-transformational tree 
diagrams. These complex diagrams scare many English teachers, but they 
illustrate the deep and surface levels of language. They also are 
predictive, rather than historical. Then you might add sentence-component 
stratificational grams, somewhat like the Christensen method (far superior 
because that system requires students to create their own sentences in 
imitation of the models) used.

            Further problems with diagramming include using someone else's 
sentences, focusing on structures rather than meaning, and ignoring context 
almost entirely. Where, for example, are setting, tone, senders and 
receivers. Where is phonology? More: diagrams appear to be the whole of 
grammar, even of language, when, as a part of the communication process, 
diagraming is miniscule.

            It seems to me that students are short-changed by an emphasis on 
grammar as it is taught and explained in current traditional grammar 
textbooks, and an emphasis on diagraming is one of the ways that encourage 
such a perspective.

            It was also interesting that this question was asked at the same 
time John Curran brought up the topic of Systemic-Functional Linguistics, a 
system based on meaning, rather than structures, where traditional grammar 
is stuck.

            Dick Betting

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Beth Young" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 12:25 PM
Subject: research on sentence diagramming?


> Hi everyone,
>
> I just received a nice email from a h.s. English teacher asking if I
> knew of any research that supports the use of sentence diagramming as an
> instructional strategy.  I'm going to encourage her to join ATEG :), but
> in the meantime, do any of you have any suggestions that I could pass
> along to her?  I am aware of such sources as David Mulroy's _War on
> Grammar_, but not of empirical research on that particular point.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Beth
>
>
>
> Dr. Beth Rapp Young
> http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~byoung
>
> University of Central Florida
> Stands For Opportunity
>
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