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I learned how to diagram sentences in college. It was eye-opening, and I wish I had learned it sooner.

I remember diagramming being covered once, maybe 5th grade, and not sure it was addressed again.

I seem to have ended up with a very strong "sense" for correct english (though I know some parts where I'm weak; and also my online "post a comment" style stuff ends up full of shorthands...). I presume that my "being good at catching grammatical weirdness" comes from several schoolyears learning German, and being a voracious bookworm as a kid.

Curious if that sort of situation is also the case for others who weren't heavily taught diagramming but still feel they ended up being really good at correct written English.

Defo. I had always had a good implicit knowledge of grammar in my L1, due to early and extensive reading, so synthesising "correct" utterances was never an issue. However, it wasn't until I started learning an L2, and had to explicitly revisit even simple structures, that the light went on and from then on I was able to easily analyse my L1 as well.

I plan on going through the book with my soon to be 4th grade son. Hopefully it's a good book.

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