In 1985, the National Council of Teachers of English declared that "repetitive grammar drills and exercises" — like diagramming sentences — are "a deterrent to the improvement of students ...

Last week, we started discussing the differences between a phrase, clause and a sentence. We defined a phrase as a group of words without a subject and a predicate, though standing together to ...

But sentence diagramming brings geometry into grammar. If you weren't taught to diagram a sentence, this might sound a little zany. But the practice has a long — and controversial — history in ...