competitive sentence diagramming

[Frank Antonson]

I have discovered that students LOVE to compete at sentence diagramming -- even if they are not very good at it.
It clearly works as a "sport" at the chalk, blackboard, classroom level.
I would like to know if anyone out there has ideas about how to make it a sport online?
Linguist Farmer

[EnglishGrammarRevolution]

Hello Frank,

I'm very interested in learning more about this as well. I think competitive sentence diagramming is such a fun idea!

I'm willing to do whatever I can to help get a group together through my website.

:) Elizabeth

English Grammar Revolution: Grammar Made Easy

[Frank Antonson]

Thanks so much for responding, Elizabeth.
I guess one would have to see the kids actually doing it to believe that it can be fun.
The "online" part is the part that stumps me; although, I guess a round of competition could be had by three people -- two contestants and a judge -- simply through two scanners and email (which is "time stamped").
Kondorosi is trying to help me learn to diagram online, but I still can't do it.
The result could probably be posted then on a website.
Linguist Farmer

[Kondorosi]

Hello Frank,

I'm very interested in learning more about this as well. I think competitive sentence diagramming is such a fun idea!

I'm willing to do whatever I can to help get a group together through my website.

:) Elizabeth

English Grammar Revolution: Grammar Made Easy

Share Your Sentence Diagram

I just popped in to say: Wow! At present I am being rushed off my feet at work and I can't be with you, but I will be back in due course.

even if they are not very good at it

I hope I am not one of them.

[Tdol]

Apart from enjoying it, do they learn much?

[TheParser]

Apart from enjoying it, do they learn much?

Excellent question. Most teachers don't know Reed-Kellogg and wouldn't use it if they did. Furthermore, high schools in the States stopped using it many decades ago because the younger teachers felt it was a waste of time and most students hated it. At the best adult ESL school in the States (I shan't name it), only one teacher uses it, and I think she recently dropped it. Of course, most students hate it. But I have no doubt that it is great for SOME (perhaps only a few) motivated students who are lucky enough to have an enthusiastic teacher.

[Frank Antonson]

I think in the USA sentence diagramming for many was a billyclub that English teachers could beat students with -- but there were always some who really understood it, liked it, and knew they were good at it.
My situation is so different because students have never been beaten up by it. They just see is as rules one must learn to play a game.
Yes, they learn plenty.
I suspect that Chomsky's work took the wind out of the sails for Reed-Kellogg.
Linguist Farmer
PS I suspect that because of the hegemony of the British school system most of the rest of the world, outside of the USA, doesn't even know of its existence.

[EnglishGrammarRevolution]

I just wanted to second Frank's observations of students enjoying diagramming. My students were eager to learn more each day.

My situation is so different because students have never been beaten up by it.

This is so true! Students don't have the stigma attached to sentence diagramming that many older people have. They react to the diagramming itself, and they enjoy it.

By the way, through my site, I notice that many private schools and homeschools teach sentence diagramming.

While it may not be the fashion in public schools, diagramming seems to be growing in non-public schools.

- Elizabeth

[Frank Antonson]

Elizabeth, I visited a Mennonite school one day and was delighted to see that the teacher was using Reed-Kellogg. And it was a through a "packaged teaching curriculum". Mennonites are, by definition, not very competitive, but they are allowed to enjoy playing; therefore, I thought there was some potential there.
Linguist Farmer

[Frank Antonson]

If anyone needs proof of students enjoying the "sport", they should go to our website (unfinished) <competitivesentencediagrammers.com>. There should be a link there to guide the curious to 10 Youtube videos. Four of those videos show the students competing. (They are not very skilled.)