The cartoon you see above was in the local paper the other day, and after I shared it on Facebook, it didn’t take long for some of my former students—from back in the mid-1960s—to weigh in with heavy memories (but fond, too!) of my earliest teaching days.
When I began teaching 7th grade “Language Arts” in the fall of 1966, the principal, Ray Clough (cluff—I always called him “Mr. Clough”) handed me a textbook—Language for Daily Use: 7.
I had been familiar with diagramming for much of my life. My mother was a junior high English teacher early in her career (Emerson JHS; Enid, Okla.), and I, of course, had endured years of it in my own experiences as a student in the public schools of Enid, and Amarillo (Tex.), and Hiram (Ohio).
I never really got it.
But because my mother spoke flawless English (and corrected us when my brothers and I didn’t—which was often), I didn’t really bother studying things. I usually did well on usage quizzes, just trying to remember how Mom said things.
But that didn’t work with diagramming.
And here’s the problem: Because I didn’t really understand why I was saying what I did, I couldn’t diagram worth a damn.
Subject and verb—that was about it, and even that was a bit ... tenuous.
My mother, of course, was an expert. I remember her teaching her Enid students how to diagram “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”—I wonder how many of them found a use for that later on?!?!?
So it wasn't until I began teaching—and had to know it—that I began to see how it all worked.
That didn't help many of my students because I discovered that pretty much the only ones who could diagram accurately were those who already understood the grammar. I mean, if you don't understand the grammar, how can you diagram?
And if you do understand the grammar, why diagram?
These were questions that pressed more fiercely on me as that first year went on, and gradually, a year or so later, I just quit trying.
Instead, more and more, I tried to teach grammar in the context of the kids' writing. In their papers we would look at common errors, and I'd try to explain the problem(s)—in context. Seemed to work better, though, of course, there always those who never really "got it," no matter what I tried to do.
Not all fellow English teachers agreed with me: Some swore by diagramming (rather than at it) and plunged on ahead, despite the odds. Some argued with me that you can not teach writing without it.
I begged to differ.
And, as the years went on, diagramming gradually faded into the past until most teachers I knew weren't doing any of it at all. Direct interactions with student writing seemed a better approach—at least for me.
Then in the 1990s the tsunami of standardized testing swept into Ohio, and, at least during the few years I was dealing with that, the state did not not include diagramming on the proficiency tests—so fewer and fewer teachers did it. Hey, if it ain't on the test, why bother?
I'm sure there are places here and there—classrooms here and there where teachers continue to pound away it it. Who knows?
Meanwhile, back to the cartoon at the top of this post. I made a discovery about gerunds later in my career (in case you don't remember, they are the -ing forms of verbs that are used as nouns: Walking is fun. I love swimming. Etc.)
I learned that if kids replace the -ing word with sex, then they would get the right answer, virtually all the time.
NOTE: In the examples, replace the entire phrase with sex.
1. He was tired from fishing all morning. [sex all morning? yes!]
2. I was fishing all morning. [I was sex all morning? no!]
3. Walking in the snow can be dangerous. [sex can be dangerous? yes!]
I also learned that golf works as a replacement, too (and many other words) but sex is just, you know, more fun.
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