by Linda Finnegan

Created on: August 08, 2010

Diagramming sentences is one of the most underused tools in the language arts classroom. Teachers today are rediscovering the value of diagramming and are adding it to their daily lessons. Diagramming is easy to teach and can add variety and fun to lessons that are often considered boring by students.

Once easy way to sneak diagramming into the lesson is to add a “diagram of the day” to the board. The diagram can illustrate visually some aspect of the lesson or it can help with a daily review of earlier lessons. Diagramming is often the picture example a student needs in understanding sentence structure and word usage. It can be the “ah-ha” moment in difficult sentences or in the presentation of new material. Very simple sentences can grow over the days with the addition of adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases. Simple subjects and predicates can change into compound subjects and predicates with the simple addition of a few words. For example, “The girls sang” can become “The cute little girls sang loudly in the classroom:” Later versions develop into “The boys and girls sang and danced in the classroom of the school” etc. The faithful addition of a diagram a day is able to teach as much grammar as regular exercises in most cases. It is also less dull and often considered a puzzle to many students.

Another strategy for teaching diagramming is to maintain a diagramming notebook. Daily diagrams can be collected there and used as hints on “diagramming days” where students diagram the entire lesson. “Diagramming days” can be handled in a variety of ways. First, diagramming days can be game days. Students can break into teams and diagram sentences together. The results can be put on the board and points can be given to the teams for correctness. Prizes can be awarded or tallies can be displayed in a prominent place for several weeks to add excitement and a sense of competition. Healthy competitions can often fuel learning in the classroom. Additionally, peer instructing and problem solving occurs in the groups as they endeavor to diagram the sentences together.

“Diagramming days” can also be an individual endeavor. Students can use their notebooks to diagram new sentences. Volunteers can be chosen to put their work on the board and students can politely agree or disagree with word placements. Corrections can be made and students can correct their notebooks. This activity can really help children who need to move around a bit during the school day. It also helps students understand that everyone makes mistakes and mistakes are part of the learning process.

Most diagramming curriculums follow the same pattern of grammar books. The simple sentence leads to more and more complicated sentence structures. Learning to diagram simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences in the grades gives the student the ability to understand more difficult structures such as gerunds, infinitives, participles, noun clauses, and adjective and adverb clauses in upper middle school. Daily doses of diagramming are an easy and fun way to accomplish this.

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