When I teach professional development training for Daily Grammar Practice, someone always asks why we need to diagram. Here's my explanation: Diagramming is a graphic organizer, and, yes, research does show that graphic organizers are beneficial. And here's my analogy for comparing sentence "marking" and sentence diagramming: When we mark the sentence (or identify its parts), that's like taking all the pieces of a puzzle and lining them up on the table. You can see they're all there, and you know that they'll all fit together, but you can't see the actual picture. Diagramming is like putting the pieces together to make the picture. The important thing is that the two practices go hand in hand. Diagramming without parsing leaves kids wondering what the point is. Parsing without diagramming leaves them without a full picture. While we don't all need both methods, many people do! I've experienced eureka experience after eureka experience by using both.
Hope that helps,
Dawn Burnette

--- On Fri, 4/11/08, Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: relative advantages of marking sentences versus diagramming
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Friday, April 11, 2008, 1:23 AM

Dear Listmates,

I would appreciate some comment on the relative advantages of marking sentences (following a KISS Grammar method or similar) versus diagramming sentences in the Reed-Kellogg style (or variant) for the purposes of teaching and learning how to understand sentence structure. The students are diligent upper elementary and middle school students performing at or above grade level; the teachers believe that grammar instruction is important; the administration lets the teachers do what they want, provided their students continue to outperform other schools. Should students learn diagramming? What advantages does it bring them that marking will not? When should they learn diagramming? Does anyone have any experience with using either both methods or diagramming with this age group? Is there any relevant research?

Thanks,

Scott Woods
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