Class Description
Gertrude Stein said, "I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences." This tool has fallen out of favor in most English classrooms, but as writers we have much to learn about writing clear, correct sentences; taking a close look at their structure is a first step towards doing so. Plus, as writers in Stein's time knew well, diagramming sentences is a really cool trick and fun parlor game. In this class we'll look closely at effective sentences and how to write them. We will begin by learning from the greats, piecing apart beautiful (and terrible) sentences from books, magazines, and newspapers, in order to understand why they are (or aren't) working. Then we'll turn review the basic grammatical parts of a sentence and learn how to diagram. We will discuss subjects and verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and ending with complex compound sentences, "verbals," noun clauses, and appositives. The class will involve writing and workshopping, and will end with the class diagramming one of Proust's famously labyrinthine sentences together.
Part of GrubStreet's Elements of Craft series, dedicated to exploring craft issues on a deeper level. For more on this series' offerings, click here.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.