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 ...

Sentence diagramming was once a widespread technique for teaching kids how to analyze the structure of a sentence. If you had to do it in school, you either loved it or you hated it. Most kids hated ...

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 ...

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, ...

For the pure geek of it, I challenged you to diagram a sentence from Mississippi State Senator Hob Bryan. He was arguing that Mississippi has passed plenty of laws against abortion already (update: ...

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.

Forget politics. Anyone who’s interested in clarity should study this post on Slate.com by author Kitty Burns Florey: “Diagramming Sarah: Can Palin’s sentences stand up to a grammarian?” In her post, ...

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 ...