Regarding Jon’s earlier post (and the rather good Salon article), when I was in the 5th grade, I was introduced sentence diagramming, and I thought it was awesome. Here was a way to disassemble sentences, analyze the components, and create a new structure to support the original constitution.1 I was engaged. Grammar was now interesting. Then, for the 6th grade, I moved to a new town. The schools didn’t teach diagramming. I asked my English teacher why, and although I don’t remember her exact response, it was something akin to patting me on the head and telling me not to worry myself about it. Anyway, boring. I’ve always thought that I learned much more about grammar in that one year than any other several years combined. 1 Pun intended
View Separately

Regarding Jon’s earlier post (and the rather good Salon article), when I was in the 5th grade, I was introduced sentence diagramming, and I thought it was awesome. Here was a way to disassemble sentences, analyze the components, and create a new structure to support the original constitution.1 I was engaged. Grammar was now interesting.

Then, for the 6th grade, I moved to a new town. The schools didn’t teach diagramming. I asked my English teacher why, and although I don’t remember her exact response, it was something akin to patting me on the head and telling me not to worry myself about it. Anyway, boring.

I’ve always thought that I learned much more about grammar in that one year than any other several years combined.

1 Pun intended

Source: grammar.ccc.commnet.edu

14 Notes/ Hide

  1. grammarjunkie reblogged this from cwj
  2. ficklechick said: I don’t get this AT all..but I still love you! xo
  3. kimalah said: Programming taught me more about grammar than any other exercise, and was essential in studying other languages IMHO.
  4. cwj posted this