This is about as biased as it gets. To think of sentence diagramming as “a repetitive drill and exercise” is a huge stretch. Giving a nice example like the opening sentence to Kafka’s story (in translation) and then focusing attention on “the Dog barked” as your prime example doesn’t help. And does anyone know of any attempt to get students to  diagram the sentences they were writing as a step in composition? It would be silly at best. Never happened in my world, and I don’t know of anyone who has or would propose it.
    The question is whether knowledge about how language works should have a place in our curriculum and then whether sentence diagramming is a good way to move that forward. I would say yes to both.
   It’s interesting that the Kafka sentence as diagrammed doesn’t let us talk about the fact that the subordinate clause comes first and “gigantic insect” is the surprising culmination of an otherwise routine event. Why does he say Gregor “found himself transformed” rather than simply saying that it happened?  Is it possible to have that sort of conversation about meaning in relation to craft without bringing the sentence structure into focus? Is this “repetitive drill and exercise” or reading at its highest level of sophistication?
    Sentence diagramming helped set a foundation for knowledge about language that has helped me enormously as teacher and writer.  As Jean says quite well, it is not a goal in itself and should never be treated as such. But to dismiss it summarily on the basis of 1960’s criticism of repetitive drill is a terrible mistake.
    The writer’s task is to reveal a subject, not obscure it. The writer seems intent on supporting the party line.

Craig

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jean Waldman
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: NCTE-FYI

The trouble with articles like this is they never mention phrase structure trees.  They talk as if there is only one way to make a geometric diagram of a sentence.  It might be an enlightening exercise to have students invent new ways to show the relationships between the words in a sentence.  Having them use Reed-Kellog or phrase structure diagrams and then grading them on right or wrong is discouraging for the students.

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Geoffrey Layton <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
NCTE just posted this link on its Facebook page - watcha'll think?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/08/22/341898975/a-picture-of-language-the-fading-art-of-diagramming-sentences
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/