True, beginning students cannot use Reed-Kellogg diagramming to analyze
the sentences they themselves write.  I have to give them prepared
sentences.  But isn't that the case with ANY system of syntatic analysis?
Don't beginning students, l;eft to themselves, always naturally create
sentences that they cannot analyze whatever the system we're taching them?
 
On Mon, 23 Feb 1998, EDWARD VAVRA wrote:
 
> Michael,
>   I'm curious about your use of Reed-Kellogg
> diagrams. What sentences do you have students
> diagram? Are they previously selected sentences, or
> do the students diagram sentences from their own
> writing? My sense of the Reed-Kellogg is that it works
> fine for relatively simple sentences but that it does not
> enable students to analyze the sentences that they
> themselves write. Am I wrong about this?
> Thanks,
> Ed
>
> >>> Michael Kischner
> <[log in to unmask]> 02/21/98
> 08:10pm >>>
> Our experience in a grammar course here at North
> Seattle Community College
> is that Reed-Kellog diagrams work quite well for about
> ninety percent of
> the students.  THat is, the students are able to use
> them to analyze the
> relations among the elements of a sentence.  For
> about ten percent, maybe
> fewer, the diagramming can be a source of painful
> frustration.  Our course
> also makes heavy use of sentence-combining (for
> putting sentences together
> again, so to speak), and sometimes the
> non-diagrammers are able to shine
> in the sentence-combining part and get a lot out of the
> class.
>
> Where grammar instruction fails to carry over into
> better writing, I don't
> think the diagramming, if it is used, can be blamed.
> The main culprit, I
> believe, is lack of time for practice in the application of
> grammar to
> style. LIke so many maidens, the handmaiden of
> thought cannot be rushed.
>