My seventh grade English class and I were having a lot of fun diagramming last week. We started with compound subjects. Then one sentence had three subjects. I got all happy; I love to diagram those kinds of sentences.
Then the students began writing and diagramming their own sentences with multiple subjects. One young lady diagrammed a sentence with all the seventh graders' names as the subject. Then another student did one with all the seventh and eighth graders' names. Later one young man diagrammed a sentence with sixty-eight countries as the subject.
Not be outdone, a young lady brought me a diagram the next day with all 150+ names of every student in the entire school and multiple verbs. I hung it on the wall to inspire everyone.
Their sentences were great too:
(Students' names) love history. (That is a great sentence!)
(Students' names) ate delicious, dripping ice cream. (This is a reward for all "A"s on their history test.)
(Students' names) are excited about school.
Diagramming is fun if we make it fun. And, it can be boring if we make it that way.
