This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. All right, class. Settle down now. Stop fidgeting. Sit up straight, eyes forward, all eyes on the blackboard. Today we're going to diagram ...

Once a popular way to teach grammar, the practice of diagramming sentences has fallen out of favor. When you think about a sentence, you usually think about words — not lines. But sentence diagramming ...

What tools does a grammarian need? A brain helps, and so does a computer, but surely one of our most essential tools is some kind of diagramming system. How can we think about a sentence’s structure, ...

There are plenty of people out there—not only English teachers but also amateur language buffs like me—who believe that diagramming a sentence provides insight into the mind of its perpetrator. The ...

The following are sixth grade-level sentences waiting to be dissected and diagrammed. “Both Tayler and Megan visited their friend in Dallas, Texas, during the summer.” “Wow, that is a really big ...

I read an article last month about the lost art of diagramming sentences, a once-required skill that many American children had to master if they wanted to pass English back in the mid-20th century.

The recently revised Standards of Learning of the Commonwealth of Virginia consider sentence diagramming an “essential skill” and mandate that it be taught in grades 6-8. Frankly, if English teachers ...

When you think about a sentence, you usually think about words — not lines. But sentence diagramming brings geometry into grammar. If you weren't taught to diagram a sentence, this might sound a ...