Source: Alway
http://1aiway.com
Date accessed: 2/7/15
Sentence
diagramming can be a great visual for students and the teacher to
work with while trying to understand the aspect of sentences. It has
great learning strategies integrated into it, but like many other
strategies, it has its shortcomings. The chapter in Grammar Alive!
That talks about diagramming sentences explains how the process
should be taught and used from then on, is great for visual learners,
is an opening for good debate and discussions, and that it can be
used as an analogy of a spine and back bones to better connect with
the students.
I, myself, think sentence diagramming is a great way for students to
visually see what is going on in sentences [reflexive pronoun to show emphasis on how much I love sentence diagramming!...]. It's not a foreign
process to them because they write sentences practically every day.
The process of sentence diagramming might be tedious and, of course,
confusing at some points, but in some ways I see it necessary in
figuring out what each word does to each sentence. The chapter talks
about how this process of sentence diagramming might be tailored to
visual learners, which I see as being truthful, but I also think it's
important to students who process things in their head to still see
the visual aspect. Sometimes students think they know what each word
does, but there are some aspects of sentence writing that just need
to be visual.
If
a student for some reason doesn't learn well with the sentence
diagram, I think it would be effective to have them write out their
own sentences and explain what each word does for the sentence without the diagram.
Although it seems this is the same thing, it gives the student
freedom to pick what word they want to depict first, and it will
maybe somehow show them that the sentence diagram might be a little
bit easier and organized.
In
my experience as a student, we actually used sentence diagramming as
well. We would do the exact process that Grammar Alive! talks about
and then have the chance to discuss our findings with the rest of the
class. I always thought this was a great way to learn the sentences,
especially since we had the chance to debate and discuss our findings
with the other students and the teacher. I didn't think about it when
I was a student, but it's important to be able to differentiate the
assignments and give work for all different kinds of learners. I
don't think the sentence diagramming hits every single type of
learner (definitely not the hard-to-keep-on-task student), but I think it is vital to
the learning of how sentences work [an aside set off by parentheses; use of parentheses to add in a side note, added humor in a way, because the parentheses adds a sort of "whisper" to writing]. This way of teaching definitely
hits verbal and visual and interpersonal [list with all ands and no commas to emphasize how many types of learners this type of activity hits]. If other learners have
trouble with this teaching, there could be other ways to integrate
their learning styles in (i.e. giving students parts of sentences on
paper and having them form sentences with their bodies [like we did
in class]).
I chose to use all three of the sentence patterns of the week because I need more experimentation with my grammar; feel free to correct me or give feedback on any of them! I think my use of the parentheses to set aside part of the sentence was used in a good way, showing the type of student that may be opposed to using this sort of sentence learning. I actually really don't like using "and" too many times in a sentence, especially with lists, but in some cases I think its a great and effective way to show emphasis. In the sentence I used the excessive "ands" in, it works, but I think it is better with the commas. The use of the reflexive pronoun is a bit out of place in the way I used it. Saying I, myself, usually emphasizes that you're really pro-something, or it adds emphasis where it wasn't really needed in this sentence.
I chose to use all three of the sentence patterns of the week because I need more experimentation with my grammar; feel free to correct me or give feedback on any of them! I think my use of the parentheses to set aside part of the sentence was used in a good way, showing the type of student that may be opposed to using this sort of sentence learning. I actually really don't like using "and" too many times in a sentence, especially with lists, but in some cases I think its a great and effective way to show emphasis. In the sentence I used the excessive "ands" in, it works, but I think it is better with the commas. The use of the reflexive pronoun is a bit out of place in the way I used it. Saying I, myself, usually emphasizes that you're really pro-something, or it adds emphasis where it wasn't really needed in this sentence.
Mikah,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a lot of good points in your post, and I’m definitely in agreement with you about how this method can definitely benefit visual learners. It’s interesting that you mentioned that you actually were taught this method in school, though. For me, seeing this in GA was actually the first time I’ve seen this method, so it looks incredibly strange to me. In my schools we never experimented with diagramming of any kind, so we never had the visual learning option. I like how you suggested alternate visual styles as well—even simply writing out sentences and identifying their different parts would be helpful (and especially the activity we did in class). Unfortunately, I can’t even remember doing anything close to this in my schools either. I believe we were just shown example after example and left on our own to figure everything out.
You incorporated the patterns of the week very well. I’m glad you chose to use all three of them—and I think you used the parenthetical-aside most effectively. For example: “I don't think the sentence diagramming hits every single type of learner (definitely not the hard-to-keep-on-task student), but I think it is vital to the learning of how sentences work.” This works great because the sentence can easily stand on its own without the information inside the parenthesis; I also liked how you eventually mentioned that using parenthesis like this creates a kind-of whisper effect, that adds another dimension to the writing. That was great. Here: “This way of teaching definitely hits verbal and visual and interpersonal [list with all ands and no commas to emphasize how many types of learners this type of activity hits].” You use the and list (without commas) very well, although I think you may want to add an additional thing to the list, just to emphasize the pattern a bit more. Great work.
I saw a few places where you might sneak in more patterns--
Ex: “It has great learning strategies integrated into it, but like many other strategies, it has its shortcomings.”
Here you could sneak in an aside I think:
It has great learning strategies integrated into it but (like many other strategies) it has its shortcomings.
Also:
Ex: The chapter in Grammar Alive! That talks about diagramming sentences explains how the process should be taught and used from then on, is great for visual learners, is an opening for good debate and discussions, and that it can be used as an analogy of a spine and back bones to better connect with the students.
I know it’d be awkward and strange, but you could abuse the and list here, by replacing the commas!
The chapter in Grammar Alive! That talks about diagramming sentences explains how the process should be taught and used from then on and is great for visual learners and is an opening for good debate and discussions and that it can be used as an analogy of a spine and back bones to better connect with the students.
Yeap, very awkward, but a good example. Great work on the post!
-- Mike