Sentence diagramming has always been an interesting topic to me. Unfortunately, many students do not like the idea of putting into different lines and shapes the words of a sentence. Most often, whenever I start a lesson and students see the lines on the whiteboard, the reaction I get from them is "What?" or "Oh no!" or "What is that?" and the funniest would be, "Oh my GASH!" (Yes, with an "AH"). These students often ask me questions such as, "What is this for?" or "Why are we doing this?" or "Are we going to use it in college?" and the most important question is, "How can we use it in real life?" I also interestingly watch the reaction of many of my students in dismay as they frown, gasp, and even murmur words of desperation as they practice during our drills in class and write with their whiteboard markers on their unison board. On the other hand, there are also students who find it interesting. I see their eyes light up as if a light bulb has been switched on whenever they get the correct answer or whenever they learn of the correct answer.
Unknown to many of them, it is through sentence diagramming that I gauge my students' ability to think critically. (Critical thinking is also the top 1 in the 8 of most necessary and useful skills for students and professionals in the 21st century.) It is through this topic that I identify students who are word-sharp. (I don't expect all of them to possess the same sharpness but I expect them to strive hard to be sharp.) It is through this nitty-gritty process of identifying word function and word relationship that I get to know students who will later on have problems with grammar and composition. They may not know it yet but they are showing their part of me in the process - the part that is willing to put brains and senses to work; the part that is willing to focus on each word or even phrases and identify (as in really, specifically identify) whether the word or the phrase in the sentence is accurate or requiring revision or syntactically correct; and the part that shows that their minds are willing to be disciplined and willing to be cracked only to be rebuilt again. (No pain, no gain.) It is also through this process that I introduce my students to deconstruction - a method of critical analysis of philosophical and literary language that emphasizes the internal workings of language and conceptual systems, the relational quality of meaning, and the assumptions implicit in forms of expression. (Apple dictionary) Lastly, this culminates all the grammar lessons into one because a student will not be able to diagram more complex sentences without first understanding the workings of grammar. Not to mention that if students want to pursue a career in writing, sentence diagramming can help by forcing them to think in active SV pattern, which is more appropriate for writing, rather than the passive one, which is more appropriate for speaking.
Sentence diagramming, just like any art, requires an intricate touch brought about by meticulous thinking that becomes a habit through practice. Just like how Picasso strokes his brush, students can bring mere words into life simply by using their pencil and sketchpad. They draw a straight line to create the base. They make sure it is stable so the words can stay on it. They draw a vertical line across the base to separate the subject from a verb and cut the line before a direct object; and they bend a little before a complement. And just like any child, they can slide down to modify or to continue running on the ground to make a prepositional phrase. And just like any athlete training in an obstacle course, they sure know how to jump to the high chair if we are talking about noun clauses; they also know how to use the rope to go down for adjective clauses; they climb to the topmost part of the chair to reach for the noun acting as a direct object. And lastly, they know how to smile even if their hands are dirty because of paint, or their clothes are soiled because of sliding, or their shirts are sweaty because of too much exercise - only this time they paint the words, they soil their paper and they exercise their minds.
