I had been out of school for a while when grammar and sentence diagramming completed their slow death in American schools. It was the 70s, and I confess I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t remember even hearing that grammar in the schools was officially “over.”
But I remember well my own experience of being taught the essentials of grammar and diagramming in the 8th grade, by a classic old-fashioned schoolmarm named Miss Seawell.
Miss Seawell was what we called “strict,” meaning she ran a 19th Century classroom. If you screwed up, she sent you to back of the room. If you did well, you came forward.
Her presentation was something else. Miss Seawell was so good, that learning the trickiest material seemed effortless. Diagramming in particular, the way she presented it, was actually fun–like a puzzle or a game.
Of course, we only diagrammed simple sentences. But I’m a visual learner, and once I’d had a little diagramming, grammar began to make sense. It helped me “see” grammar–and once you can see it, it’s hard to live with heedless misconstructions like:
None of the crowd were hurt in the rush to the specials counter.
The chancellor presented honorary degrees to my colleague and I.
(If these examples look okay to you…please call the nearest grammar hotline for emergency treatment!
So this no-grammar thing…the collective policy decision of teachers to quit teaching it…can it be true? Did it really happen?
If you were in school in the late 70′s, 80′s or 90′s, do you remember studying grammar? If so, are you glad? If not, do you wish you had?
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