Notes on: “Flying Jewels” and lost diagramming skills

 Brian Doyle, author of Joyas Voladoras begins his essay with the wonders of the heart of varying species. His descriptive imagery is packed with information. Doyle's observations are clinically  biological yet simultaneously artful and poetic. The essay undergoes a transition to matters of the human heart where the impossibility of ideal love is realized. The adult speaker is aware that it is impossible to live life without undergoing the hardships of a metaphorical broken heart.

 The abstractions of love are part of human nature. When Doyle describes the animals, they have amazing hearts and strong bodies. Though they are capable of affection in some form for the survival of the species, they are free from the human concept of love and aspiration towards such an ideal. “No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside. So much is held in our heart in a lifetime. So much is held in our heart in a day, an hour, a moment.”(pg. 169).

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             In the essay Sister Bernadette’s  Barking Dog, Kitty Burns Florey chronicles her experiences in school learning to diagram sentences. She uses diagrams to illustrate her point both comically and literally. By recalling a piece of her English education before she began writing professionally the author creates a platform that most can remember from their own past.

             Such a way of teaching sentence structure may be effective to some, but there must be other ways.  The  author herself admits the flaws of the diagram method.

“Diagramming may have taught us to write correctly—and maybe even think logically—but I don’t think anyone would claim that it taught us to write well. And besides, any writer knows that the best way to learn to write good sentences is not to diagram them but to read them.” (pg.176).

             I personally disliked diagramming sentences. I don’t remember understanding nor succeeding at the task. I took to this lesson plan like I took to European geography. I could not, despite great efforts, identify France. Unlike Kitty I did not see the diagramming of sentences as “a picture of language.” (pg.172).  My ineptitude at diagramming is even more ironic because I am an  English major. Maybe it was my exceptional vocabulary that  saved me from failure?



 I found someone on youtube  who is still passionate about diagramming sentences!