Taking Our Sentences Sideways! (AKA Diagramming)

We have been having fun pulling our sentences apart, looking at all those words like puzzle pieces, and then putting them into a special diagram.  Why are we doing this?  Well, even though I don't think we all need to diagram every sentence we see, diagramming can help us understand the parts of speech better and whether we're using active or passive voice in our writing.  It can make us more aware of how we put our sentences together, show us where we might add information, or point out where we might have missed something.  Plus, if you like brainteasers, diagramming is one kind of puzzle you can create and solve on your own anytime!

Using what we've learned in the past weeks, try diagramming 2 or more of these sentences on your own paper.  Unfortunately, we can't respond in the comments section for this one, since this blog won't let us turn our sentences sideways!  Remember to start with finding the subject and verb in the sentence and placing them on your line.  Just to make it challenging, I threw in a couple of sentences written in the passive voice.  Because we are working on using the active voice, let's turn those into active voice sentences before you diagram them. Puzzle on!

1.  Christian and Samantha rode their bikes.
2.  Maile sent the letter.
3.  Mrs. Bockius assigned fun homework!
4.  The winning goal was scored by Alan.
5.  Connor and Dayna sorted costumes for the play.
6.  The fifth-grade boys sang love songs.
7.  A bouquet of dandelions was picked by the girls.
8.  The kid with the UConn shirt celebrated wildly!