Let the games begin

[Frank Antonson]

I notice that things are a little slow at the moment on this part of the forum.

Well, the school year has begun for me, and this year I am intend to teach Reed-Kellogg for the first time in about 15 years. We will see whether or not I can "turn on" 14-year-olds to the art. Warning! If I manage to do so, I intend to send them to this site.

It will still take about two or three weeks of preparation in morphology before they will be ready for syntax.

[Tdol]

I hope it goes well.

[Frank Antonson]

Thanks, Tidol,

I THINK it will. Traditional grammar has been (dangerously in my opinion) abandoned in recent years here in the USA. I cannot assume that a 13-year-old would know what a prepositional phrase is. In fact, I can assume that one would NOT know.

So, for some of them there will be a world to discover. The trick will be get them to like/love it. At least they have probably not been jaded by the subject -- something that I think used to happen to many.

I will certainly be letting this forum know how it goes.

Frank

[susiedq]

Some of my fondest memories of English classes were when we would have diagramming races. Teams of kids were given a sentence to diagram, then one of the group would be sent to the blackboard to post the diagrammed sentence. Great fun.

[Frank Antonson]

I'm so glad to hear that!

It really WAS fun!

When I was a student, we never had races; but I intend to make up for that in my last years of teaching.

I am not sure if I have already told this story on this forum, but about fifteen years ago when I was having my students compete at sentence diagramming, one foolish boy had the nerve to reach over and erase part of the diagram made by the girl that he was competing against. Well, she, quick as lightening let fly with a kick that caught him right in the balls. He limped back to his desk, defeated.

[Abstract Idea]

I notice that things are a little slow at the moment on this part of the forum.

Well, the school year has begun for me, and this year I am intend to teach Reed-Kellogg for the first time in about 15 years. We will see whether or not I can "turn on" 14-year-olds to the art. Warning! If I manage to do so, I intend to send them to this site.

It will still take about two or three weeks of preparation in morphology before they will be ready for syntax.

Hi, Frank Antonson!

Do you have a simple neat pdf reference on this subject?

I have been hearing about this and other sentence diagramming techniques and they seem to be really fun. But I confess that I do not know anything about them.
(In fact one of the few books I read on grammar unfortunately told the readers to completely forget about diagramming sentences whatever they be).

It would really be nice if you could give us a simple accessible complete reference specifically written for beginners.

[Frank Antonson]

Whoever told you to forget about sentence diagramming did not know what they were talking about. They, apparently, have never experienced the fun.

Yes, there are various websites. The one that I maintained, but am about to let expire is "competitive sentence diagrammers.com".

Another is http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMM...ms_frames.htmr

It very very good and very complete
http://www.english-grammar-revolutio...ntences.htmlco

Still another:

Reed-Kellogg Diagrammer

And

Diagram Sentences

If, after checking them out, you would like to know more, just let me know.

Frank

[Frank Antonson]

Let me try that one again...

DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES

There,

Framl

[Frank Antonson]

I meant

"There,

Frank"

[Isafroward]

I notice that things are a little slow at the moment on this part of the forum.

Well, the school year has begun for me, and this year I am intend to teach Reed-Kellogg for the first time in about 15 years. We will see whether or not I can "turn on" 14-year-olds to the art. Warning! If I manage to do so, I intend to send them to this site.

It will still take about two or three weeks of preparation in morphology before they will be ready for syntax.

Sounds, great, Frank! I'll bet you can get those kids interested! Have you ever considered teaching parts of speech, etc., through diagramming and syntax during and after diagramming? (I'm new here, so I may have missed threaded information prior to today.)

I've been teaching and refining my grammar instruction as well as syntax instruction over the past, oh, seven years, and I've found that through diagramming instruction, we can hit on many of the other things.