Let the games begin

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Frank Antonson

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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

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I hope it goes well. ;-)
 

Frank Antonson

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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/GRAMMAR/diagrams2/diagrams_frames.htmr

It very very good and very complete
http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/diagram-sentences.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

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I meant

"There,

Frank"
 

Isafroward

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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.
 

Isafroward

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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.


Hi, Abstract Idea,

Here's another that will quickly provide "oodles" of diagramming information and resources: Diagramming Sentences

Coupled with the Commnet site that Frank provided, you should be in business. I give my students a booklet with the diagrams from the following two links: Diagramming Sentences
Diagramming Sentences

Then I begin by teaching Moutoux's sentences:
Diagramming Sentences
Diagramming Sentences
Moutoux's "basics" take me about nine weeks. As we diagram, I teach grammar, usage, and mechanics, which also brings us to a quarter of syntax.

Let me know what you think.

Dea
 

Frank Antonson

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This has been quite a learning experience for me, teaching traditional grammar again after about 15 years of not doing it.

I started strictly with morphology, but this coming week, even though I am not finished with morphology, I think I will begin to teach a little syntax, and with it basic sentence diagramming. Some of the students are actually anxious to start. In the past, I have always kept the two strictly apart, but this year I think I will mix the teaching of them -- not mix the two subjects. I care VERY much that simple subjects are not confused with or called nouns and that simple predicates are not confused with or called verbs, but I believe that I can keep them apart in my students' minds.

Still another source for the teaching of sentence diagramming is Youtube. I am on there with about 8 videos. Several others are on there as well, but they bother me in that they do the very mixing that I mentioned above.
 

Abstract Idea

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Thank you very much for your passionate work with the kids FA; I am sure with such a motivated teacher they will understand there is a lot of interesting stuff in linguistics.
Besides the subject itself, they will see you eyes shining while teaching them!
 

Frank Antonson

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I suppose so. My "shining eyes" actually scared a girl sitting in the front row. She rather called it my "crazy look" or something like that.

She's okay -- and still sitting in the front row.
 

mxreader

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Frank, a couple of questions:

1. What do you see are the main benefits of using diagramming as opposed to say simple bracketing?

2. How do diagramming treat inverted subjects (e.g. "In the town, was an enormous chocolate factory")?

3. I've been away for a while and noticed that my good forum friend Kondorosi has been banned. What happened do you know?

Cheers.
 

Frank Antonson

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Well,

That's a tall order!

1) As far as diagramming being superior is concerned, I guess I would start with the fact that once the system is understood there are no terms that have to be used -- only the words in the sentence being examined. To myself (and I suspect many others) the terms involved in syntax, being so latinate, are a real put off -- terms like "predicate adjective", "object of a preposition", "relative pronoun connecting an independent clause to a subordinate adjective clause".
Another thing, though, is that the diagrams tend to be pretty. For a while I was conversing on this forum with a man from Persia. He and I were Reed-Kellogging the same sentence in English and Persian. Since Persian is done from right to left, the two samples, when put next to each other, ended up looking like a nearly symmetrical design.
The real crux of the matter, though, is that Reed-Kellogg diagramming is fun! Yesterday, in school, I was reassured about it when I saw students who have failing grades in my class come to life begging to try to diagram a sentence on the chalkboard. Yesterday was the day that I introduced the art, after doing much groundwork in morphology. Soon I will post here a report of my progress. (A woman who assists with one of the classes hadn't diagrammed in about 30 years, but completely remembered it -- and fondly -- together with the name of the teacher who taught it to her and who allowed students to diagram on the chalkboard.)
2) Inverted parts of sentences are treated as if they were not inverted. A question like "Do you know?" would be digrammed as "you Do know"'. The capital "D" shows where the sentence starts.
3) Kondorosi, wherever he is, is a genius. But he seems to have a temper -- and certainly a very sharp wit. Both got him into trouble. I believe that he MAY have resurrected under the name Corum, who is also a genius.

Nice to have you back!

Frank
 

mxreader

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Thanks for your thoughts Frank.

I have a Libronix Logos software and also the diagramming add-on (used for studying Koine) , however I felt it was important for me to get familiar with the traditional (or thereabouts) terminologies first. I've not taken up the diagramming yet though. If you got students begging to do this, that is fantastic. I'll keep an eye out for your report.

I enjoyed sparring with Kondorosi, I cannot think how he could have caused trouble. I've always took his cheeky responses with good humour, and I believe he gave them with good humour too. Anyway... I'll check out the other nick name. Thanks again.
 

Frank Antonson

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One of the techniques that I use when I teach grammar and syntax is to have the students take notes in an extreme "shorthand". When we begin to take a close look at adverbs, the students will write something like:

Ata. adv.
 

Frank Antonson

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Whoops, I sent that before I was finished.

Ata. adv.
 
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