I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences.
— Gertrude Stein
Being able to diagram sentences is like being able to read music: many people will think your skill useless, but it can add incredible value to your appreciation and love of the beautiful.
I love language. I love the construction, the usage, the etymology, the comparisons. I like to learn languages — I’ve studied French, German, Japanese, Latin, and am currently learning Spanish, Italian, and Catalan on Duolingo.
One of the things I find deeply exciting, like Gertrude Stein, is how the language hangs together, how the sentence structure can, like the structure of great architecture, support something meaningful.
Grammar can be beautiful, it can be innovative, it can help us frame our thoughts more clearly. For a writer like Stein, clearly, diagramming sentences allowed her to get deeply into the heart of the language as she wrestled with the most effective way to communicate her thoughts.
My teachers in grammar school (parochial school from kindergarten through 8th grade), Dominican nuns, loved diagramming sentences. We all stood at the chalkboard, parsing and laying out the bones of sentences like a fun game.
When I am driving around or hiking or out in a boat, I like to be able to have a mental map of where I am in the geography of the place. Similarly, I grasp the grammar of the sentence by forming a mental picture of the diagram. The diagram helps me travel true, as it were.
In my homeschool, I use a wonderful book in the ninth-grade English course called Grammar by Diagram: Understanding English Grammar Through Traditional Sentence Diagramming, by Cindy Vitto. We have the second edition, but I understand that a third is out. I cannot recommend this book highly enough if you want to study grammar. The book is interesting, well-laid out, methodical. The sentence examples are interesting. There is a complete answer key in the back of the book.
Usually, my students (I’m on my sixth and final student) find it a little tedious at the beginning but then find that they really enjoy the entire process. So far, they all agree that it is one of the best texts they used in their homeschool days.
The back cover of the text is adorned with the Gertrude Stein quote that inspired this essay.
Did you study grammar in your school days? Did you diagram sentences? Did you like it? Have your children studied grammar?
This is part of the February 2023 Quote of the Day Group Writing project. Sign up here.
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