Herb,
The question about the role of diagrams in the K-12 class is difficult to
answer because it is almost shameful to admit that I have used them.  There
are sometimes such strong feelings about their relevance.  My justification
when I have used them with any students grade 8-12 is not based in
particular methods for language instruction, but for meeting the needs of
students who have strong spatial intelligence or learn best kinesthetically.
I have had students tell me they were "very helpful" and some students found
them fun.  It was my Asian ESL students who really took to them.
Amy

-----Original Message-----
From: Stahlke, Herbert F.W. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 5:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Reed-Kellogg diagrams


In a recent posting I mentioned Mark Lester's Grammar in the Classroom.  I
find it in many ways a fine text, but I haven't used it in my UG grammar
classes because of its heavy use of Reed-Kellogg diagrams.  But my
hesitation may be unfounded; hence my question.  What is the role of
Reed-Kellogg diagrams in contemporary K12 grammar teaching.  I've looked at
various language arts series, and some of them use   R-K to varying extents.
I've occasionally used them in my classes for their ability to represent
certain types of grammatical function, something that phrase structure trees
do only tangentially, unless you code function into node labels like Max
Morenberg does in Doing Grammar.  R-K diagrams are weak on structure, and
they aren't consistently reliable on function, but they do represent a
respectable tradition of grammar teaching, and I know they have some level
of support.  Do K12 language arts teachers need to be familiar with R-K?
Should they be covered in a UG grammar course for developing language arts
teachers?

Herb



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