Diagram This: Victory Can Be Sweet, but Sticky
Teacher Magazine ’s take on education news from around the Web, Nov. 5-11.
Stop what you’re doing and listen carefully. Hear that? No, no one’s whistling in the wind—that’s the sound of a pendulum swinging back. Again. Since the 1960s, most teachers and researchers have steered sharply away from the rigid architecture of diagramming sentences , thinking such drills presented, as the National Council of Teachers of English put it in 1985, “a deterrent to the improvement of students’ speaking and writing.” Championed by a new cadre of true believers ready to pitch whole language into the overflowing Dumpster of Discredited Theories, students may now once again be heard spouting such euphonies as “predicate nominative” and “subjective complement.” Diagramming’s return comes by popular request from employers, teachers, and national studies, all of which have cited noticeable corrosion of student writing over the years. When Virginia recently revised its state standards, diagramming was specifically mentioned as an essential skill. “There’s a real hunger for grammar out there among people who care about writing,” says Arthur VanderVeen, a senior director at the College Board, which administers the SAT. But the metastasizing prevalence of standardized tests and No Child Left Behind mandates, and the hunger they create for easily assessable learning, are also at least partially responsible for reviving the diagramming movement...
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