Kendall, one of the things that helped us tremendously during this lesson was diagramming. If the two structures are parallel, they will be shaped exactly the same way on the sentence diagram. In fact, if you're dealing with single words or simple clauses, they will be literally parallel on the diagram. If you use diagrams in your grammar lessons, try using them here, too.
On this particular example, I look at the three bits of the sentence in question and see:
was not attentive during her lesson (verb with helping verb modified by "not," followed by adverb phrase)
did not practice daily (verb with helping verb modified by "not," followed by adverb)
For the three clauses in question to be parallel, I would expect another verb/helping verb/not/adverb or adverb phrase, so I think your instincts are good. Strictly speaking, "was good" is a copula with predicate adjective, not a verb with helper, but it does have the same rhythm as the other two clauses, so I'd take that, especially from a younger student. If you wanted to be really picky, you might insist on something more like, "did not play scales well at all."
Fwiw, I boiled down the signs of parallelism for my children to these two things: Parallel structures share the same grammatical form. Parallel structures serve the same function in the sentence.
As we talked about his solutions my oldest son thought that the diagrams should be the same but we didn't diagram it. We will do that from now on-great suggestion.
What part of the diagram needs to be identical? I am also wondering if the “not” is necessary for parallelism. It kind of sounds like it is or maybe just some other adverb that can interupt a verb phrase or copula/predicate adjective would work as well.
‘She was not attentive’
I saw this as a copula/predicate adjective/adverb phrase not as a helping verb/verb/adverb phrase. If I am correct then that does not have the same diagram yet it does sound parallel because of the rhythm just as you mentioned.
If we look at the option ‘did not play scales well ‘
helping verb verb/ direct object/ adverb
the others don't have a direct object
‘was bad at scales’
copula/predicate
I don't know what to do with at scales but in the time that I have I would make a quick quess of adverb phrase though it doesn’t quite seem like something that modifies was. If so this is copula/predicate adjective/adverb phrase
I saw this as a copula/predicate adjective/adverb phrase not as a helping verb/verb/adverb phrase. If I am correct then that does not have the same diagram yet it does sound parallel because of the rhythm just as you mentioned.
Of course you are right, Kendall. I missed quite a few things when I wrote that post. I caught a couple after I hit submit, and went back and edited - but obviously I missed a big one.
It's the parallel bits of the sentence that will look identical on the diagram. As you noticed, something like this with some of the elements using helping verb/verb and others using copula/predicate adjective will not look exactly identical. They will all have the same number of words on the main line of the diagram, though. The only difference will be that some have a slanted line in the predicate and others will not, so even these will look a lot alike. You'll find a few other exceptions to "same grammatical form", such as mixing gerunds with regular nouns ("Soccer, baseball, and swimming are my favourite sports.") or participles with regular adjectives. But although these won't look exactly alike on a diagram, they do look much alike, serve the same function in the sentence, and will have the same rhythm when you read them aloud.
This reminds me of the note in Mother Tongue 2 that says that some grammarians regard is and the noun or adjective that follows it as the simple predicate.
You made perfect sense about the main line of the diagram. I think the modifiers don't need to be identical such as single word adverb vs. adverb phrase vs. no adverb. I do still wonder whether not is a special case because of the fact that it interupts the verb phrase. I, however, am now days behind in Latin, laundry, and literature so I can't spend any more time on this nor shall I ask you to.
Thanks for the dialogue about this. I had my boys read the section in Strunk and White on parallelism today and I think they are understanding this.
This exchange made the whole job of producing the program worthwhile!
The only contribution I can make is to say that words, clauses, and phrases can be parallel in degrees. In other words, two phrases could be perfectly parallel when they are exact parallels to the word:
John is a fish Sally is a carbuncle
Two phrases can still be considered parallel if they include parts that are parallel
John went fishing Sally went to the ball game
The degree of perfection you demand is a matter of judgment. The main thing, as always, is that your students understand the idea. The better they understand the idea itself, the better they can make these judgments for themselves.
With younger students I recommend being more absolute: give them phrases that clearly are not parallel or phrases that are clearly parallel. Then over time teach them to make judgments in degree.
Not parallel:
Boxing! No way. Awfully good of you to throw my puppy over the fence.
You get the idea.
By the way, you might reread this entry for parallel phrases and clauses. You can readily see how confusing unparallel writing is. You can also see how twists in the sentence patterns reflect twists in the thought - negations or qualifications, for example.
I thought I was okay with this until I saw Andrew's post.
John went fishing Sally went to the ball game
The degree of perfection you demand is a matter of judgment. The main thing, as always, is that your students understand the idea. The better they understand the idea itself, the better they can make these judgments for themselves.
To me the examples Andrew gave cannot be parallel. One is using a gerund being used as the direct object in the sentence. In the second sentence, "to the ball game" is a prepositional phrase acting as an adverb telling where. I don't see how a word acting as a noun could ever be parallel to a phrase acting as an adverb.
I was looking over the examples on the second page of the worksheet for this module. Are there two errors in the first? They all can act as direct objects because football is a noun; to swim is an infinitive acting as a noun; and playing PlayStation is a gerund phrase acting as a noun.
So I'd be tempted to say that two of those three are wrong since they are all acting as the direct object in different ways. So if what Andrew says above is true, I don't see how this one can have anything wrong with it; however, I would think that to be parallel they should be changed in one of these ways:
Matthew likes playing football, swimming, and playing PlayStation. (all gerunds) Matthew likes to play football, to swim, and to play PlayStation. (all infinitives)
Please let me know if I'm not understanding something correctly.
Am I understanding the assignment for the elocution module 2 correctly? If the students take their 5-paragraph essay and use parallel construction in the introduction, conclusion, and the three proof paragraphs; do they end up with just one sentence for each paragraph? It seems that to use parallel construction in those paragraphs forces them to make it all into one sentence--which I know is fine grammatically, but it seems they are no longer paragraphs.
So I was writing all of this explanation below and then the real problem dawned on me! I'll leave the info below, but I am sure you will not need it.
The problem is that the "year-at-a-glance" on page 25 indicates the lessons in a slightly different order than I think they should actually be taught. I taught Arrangemen Module 3: Basic Persuasive Essay before the Elocution Moduel 2: Parallelism so the parallelism really made. All of my notes below hinge on learning the essay form first. Now, I suppose you could teach the elocution lesson first, but then you would run into the problem you presented. I think it makes more sense to have more information to work with though. :)
I took this assignment to be this-
Use parallelism in the intro, body and conclusion. So the introduction will be the great thesis sentence that they are so familiar with by now- We should learn to write more effectively using invention, arrangement and elocution. So the exposition is in parallel form. The conclusion follows this same pattern.
Then use the same wording to open each paragraph such as-We should learn to write more effectively using invention. Then this paragraph includes the sentences giving the grouped members for this reason. So it is the explantion of the group members, from arrangement module 3. Each body paragraph begins with this sentence structure so we have the parallelism with each opening sentence.
We should learn to write more effectively using invention.
We should learn to write more effectively using arrangement.
We should learn to write more effectively using elocution.
Thanks so much, Leah. What you say makes sense. I really need to thoroughly look through the program so I know what's coming. If you have any other tips of what you've learned as you've gone through the program, I'd love to hear them. Of course, you're probably already doing that through this forum. I appreciate your input!
The only contribution I can make is to say that words, clauses, and phrases can be parallel in degrees. In other words, two phrases could be perfectly parallel when they are exact parallels to the word:
(examples removed) Two phrases can still be considered parallel if they include parts that are parallel
The degree of perfection you demand is a matter of judgment. The main thing, as always, is that your students understand the idea. The better they understand the idea itself, the better they can make these judgments for themselves.
Thanks, Andrew, this helps. My high school classes discussed parallelism this week - I'm glad to hear you say that phrases can be parallel in degrees. I allowed them to use the basic idea of parallelism without requiring them to "fine tune" it very much (e.g. I didn't require parallel adverbial phrases). I hoped that we got close enough and that as they practice using it they'll get better at it. I wondered if I'd confused them by not being more precise or thorough, but now I think we were OK. Let me know if I'm misunderstanding!
Thanks again for all your work on this. (And all the rest of you too!!!)
