Love to Your Gramma[r]

The last two days have been spent in sentence diagramming in AP Lit because apparently none of the other people taking the class knows the least bit about grammar.

I have been awed at sentence diagramming ever since I read Little Town on the Prairie, where Laura has to diagram a sentence to pass her teacher's examination, and it completely blew my mind..

Anyways, this evening, I wished to construct a sentence and attempt to diagram it for your entertainment. Sadly, I make more complex sentences than I can diagram with all impunity, so there may be significant errors in this document.

However, I present this to you now:
http://www.snowy-day.net/stuff/scraps/sentence.png

I will bestow a fleeting happiness on the one who can recreate the original sentence (PROTIP: Once is capitalized, I swear).

(SPOILER)I had thought to keep the words undefined, because that's most of the challenge, but knowing my handwriting, and the quality of the scan, I thought I'd make it a little easier, so, here, left to right, going down by rows, is a word bank.

man came
a strange once when up to
me
I went walking
talking made think me
his back to
day
a ago
long
so
(that) I could remember way
not the
(that) I got there

I remembered having to do this during 8th grade and I hated it. Your diagram looks like it's up to par though.

If this was ever taught in the schools I attended, I must have refused to participate because I've never seen such a thing.

And quite frankly, I don't care to ever map out a sentence in such a way.

... wtf?

I've taken and done well on the AP Lit and AP Language exams, but I've never seen such a thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nominus Experse

If this was ever taught in the schools I attended, I must have refused to participate because I've never seen such a thing.

And quite frankly, I don't care to ever map out a sentence in such a way.

---

What in the world is that? Besides terrifying. Long have I been parsing sentences and never have I seen such horrors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raistlin

... wtf?

I've taken and done well on the AP Lit and AP Language exams, but I've never seen such a thing.

---

I REMEMBER DOING THAT IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL! Fortunately, it isn't in AP curriculum ^^

There's too many errors in your sentence diagram to recreate it properly.
After some closer inspection, it's not really erroneous, it's just full of notation that is not traditionally used (but some of it is either error or a slight nuance that was missed).

However, it should read something like this:

A strong man once came up to me when I went walking
(or, "Once, a strong man...")
and
his talking made me think back
to a day long ago, so that (or so long ago that)
I could not remember
the way I got there.

Why I retained this information since sixth grade is beyond me.

I think diagramming sentences is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever had to do in an English class. There are better way to learn grammar, and while I am a bit ashamed and disappointed that I cannot, off the top of my head, label each and every part of a sentence, I can live with it. I can write without making many grammatical blunders, and that is good enough for me.

I almost flunked a couple of my elementary english classes because of this. It actually reversed my education. I probably had to read a novel for every one of these damn things I worked out in order to restore my literacy.

I won;'t even look at that, and I implore you to burn it.

Sentence diagramming was retardedly easy in 9th grade. The honors English class had to do them. It makes me laugh to remember all the people who didn't get it. :D

I like the lines for gerunds. Edit: And infinitives.

I used to wish we covered more grammar stuff in AP Lit. I take it back...

never heardof this before in my short years.

Is it okay that I have no smurfing clue what you're on about?

Oh, and grammar is [sic]. :bigsmile:

I have no idea what "sentence diagramming" is all about. o_o Never ever had to do it in all my years of English lessons or otherwise; how does it work? Because I really don't understand the diagram o_O

Edit: Once when I went walking, a strange man came up to me. His talking made me think back to a day so long ago that I could not remember the way I got there. (wherever you are when the said strange man comes up to you, I guess? but it doesn't entirely make sense...)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raistlin

I've taken and done well on the AP Lit and AP Language exams, but I've never seen such a thing.

---

That's because it's ultimately useless. You can build a good foundation with an understanding of English grammar, but that does not equate to being a good writer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dr Unne

What in the world is that? Besides terrifying. Long have I been parsing sentences and never have I seen such horrors.

---

xD I agree. It's scary.

I learned how to do that in sixth grade and enjoyed it so very, very much. n_n

It makes perfect sense if you turn it upside down and invert the colours.

I hate sentence diagramming. I went out of my way to forget as much as possible from English 311.

Resha wins, except she left out the word and, but that's not important.

points:

no it's not a part of AP tests, but it's a good way to kill time in class and I really enjoy it. We wouldn't've have ever been taught it if I hadn't mentioned it in class when our teacher was despairing of a way to teach us grammar.

I told you there were probably errors in it :p What is it that is so nuanced or slightly wrong?

I've never seen that way of putting sentences together. It looks retarded.

I don't get why an AP Lit class is having problems with grammar.

I remember diagramming, and, beyond the basic structure, it just seemed to make understanding grammar much more complicated than it needed to be.

Oh god, someone let Rubah be the Shin-ra Grammar enforcement officer again...

What is this craziness? A sentence diagram?! That makes no sense, make sense!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by farplaner

I don't get why an AP Lit class is having problems with grammar.

I remember diagramming, and, beyond the basic structure, it just seemed to make understanding grammar much more complicated than it needed to be.

---

The state standards for English in Arkansas don't require much in the way of grammar knowledge. We haven't had hardcore grammar lessons since 6th or 7th grade.

"The state doesn't require me to teach you grammar, so I guess I won't :("

Gah I remember those from my 7th grade days. Our English teacher couldn't teach so she just had us diagram everyday and do nothing but diagram and expected us to learn something. Unfortunately it was a waste as it only taught us to think how to best make it look like we knew what we were doing and get a passing grade.

A strange man once came up to me when I went walking and his talking made me think back to a day so long ago that I could not remember the way that I got there

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rubah

The state standards for English in Arkansas don't require much in the way of grammar knowledge. We haven't had hardcore grammar lessons since 6th or 7th grade.

"The state doesn't require me to teach you grammar, so I guess I won't :("

---

Arkansas, huh? I'm right next door to you ----> TN.

Anyway, it looks like you're doing pretty good despite the standards, at least according to that diagram you designed. :D

Never had to do anything like that. Actually the most I ever learnt about sentence structure in High School was in grade 9 then in grade 11. In grade 9 we were taught about the subject, predicate and various things though most of them we already knew. Then in grade 11 we were formally taught independent and subordinate clauses and the various ways to combine them, plus some more proper punctuation (mostly semi-colons and commas).

I really started to learn sentence structure when I took Ancient Greek class in my first year of university. I started to actually know the different between direct and indirect objects especially since Attic Greek has declensions. Declensions = nightmare imho.