I think that sentence diagramming has been unfairly criticized by English teachers & researchers. I reluctantly used it in a course preparing students to teach English (Grammar for Teachers), but I was pleasantly surprised at how well diagraming worked as a visual representation of connections and purposes of the indvidual parts of sentences. I use Mark Lester's Grammar in the Classroom, which is heavily based on conventional diagraming. I would add, though, that the danger of focusing too much on such a level of language is that students don't make connections to meaning or to other grammatical issues. At times, they can diagram a sentence w/o understanding much about the whole sentence structure or even the individual words. In short, diagraming is still just one tool with its own strengths & shortcomings. I'm sure you know that but I had to say it! larry beason Eastern Washington University