Sentence Diagramming Grammar Class, Session 2

Learn grammar by diagramming sentences! From adjective and adverbial clauses to noun clauses, infinitives, participles, gerunds, and more.

Enroll on Outschool, or contact me to set up a private individual or group class.

Sentence diagramming helps us master sentence construction, which helps us write better, read better, and think better.

In tutoring many high school students (even junior and senior level — and college level), I find that most students unfortunately cannot pick out the noun and verb in a sentence, never mind say what an adjective or adverb is. They can “get” a sentence, but they lack a conceptual understanding of it.

Just as builders need to know the nature of their tools — hammer, saw, screwdriver, wrench, etc. — and how they work, so also we who communicate and think need to know what our tools of communication and thought are and how they work.

Hence, in this class — through lecture, interactive discussion, and interactive work — we will identify and define the parts of speech and we will learn how to diagram sentences containing them. Building on Session 1 — parsing sentences, seeing to the kernel of a thought/sentence, and grasping how all the concepts of a thought/sentence connect — we will learn how to parse and think about other grammatical elements: noun clauses, verbals, and more.

Come prepared to listen, take notes, answer some questions, ask some questions, do some work, and start to make a life-long habit of clear communication, writing, and thinking. We will lay down the basic foundation using sentence diagramming; we will start the journey to better thinking and better living through better grammar.

Enroll on Outschool, or contact me to set up a private individual or group class.

Week 1
Day 1
Review the parts of speech from session 1: noun, verb, pronoun, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction.
Review the four kinds of verbs.
Practice diagramming sentences with prepositional phrases, sentences with compound elements, and sentences with subordinate clauses.
Day 2
Restrictive and non-restrictive clauses.
Practice diagramming sentences with prepositional phrases, sentences with compound elements, and sentences with subordinate clauses.

Week 2
Day 1
Diagramming prepositions of three words.
Implicit “you,” “to,” and “that.”
Diagramming introductory words, direct address, and interjections.
Diagramming elliptical clauses.
Diagramming adverbs that modify adjectives and adverbs.
Day 2
Noun clauses.

Week 3
Day 1
Diagram noun clauses and more
Day 2
Verbals: the infinitive, the gerund, and the participle
Diagramming gerunds

Week 4
Day 1
Review
Practice diagramming gerunds and more
Day 2
Diagramming participles

Week 5
Day 1
Practice diagramming participles
Day 2
Infinitives
Diagramming infinitives

Week 6
Day 1
Practice diagramming infinitives and more
Day 2
The appositive, the objective complement, the adverbial noun

Time permitting:
Improving your writing: starting sentences with prepositional phrases and participles.
Using the adjective and adverb questions to improve your writing.

Enroll on Outschool, or contact me to set up a private individual or group class.