Okay, but

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Okay, but
By maryteach

you still don't answer my main question: How is knowing that "astonishing" is an adjective cause me to use that word any more effectively than if I don't know that? And who cares, in the real world, if you DID end a sentence
with a prepostion? We do it all the time in speech, and yes, in writing. I am sure that you can pick up any published novel, for instance, and find examples of sentences ending in prepositions. I think teaching those prescriptive rules is silly, silly, silly. That's like telling them never to split infinitives--yet splitting infinitives is done very effectively all the time. I

think we need to teach kids the living, breathing language that we actually SPEAK and USE. Yes, we do need to be able to write formal essays, but essays are not what the world uses to communicate--actual, authentic language is the way we communicate, and the way kids should be writing.

But why do I have to be able to identify a word's part of speech in order to use it effectively? How does knowing that "into" is a prepostion and not a noun make me a better writer? Why do I even have to be able to define a noun? How does that help me write?

I agree with you that student writing needs focus, but how does parts of speech instruction and sentence diagramming do that? I can see that diagramming would certainly help your students learn the parts of speech--I just don't see what benefits they gain from being able to distinguish an adverb from a pronoun. I think they've been taught something sort of empty.

Why not spend all that time teaching actual writing?