How many of you remember diagramming sentences in elementary school? Where you shuffled, with great trepidation, to the chalkboard to draw a straight line and bisect it to show the “subject” (noun) and “predicate” (verb). And then the diagonal line(s) underneath one or more of those words to show “modifiers.”
I have to make a confession—I liked diagramming. Although some have likened it to a mathematical equation, I see it more as putting pieces into a jigsaw puzzle (I’m not mathematically inclined, but I do like puzzles).
It is easy enough to figure out “The horse galloped” or “The cat hissed.” But what about “John’s horse galloped around the paddock and then ran into the woods.” Oh my. Now you’re getting into lines underneath the lines beneath the subject/predicate line. And where does “around the paddock” go? OK, maybe that’s easy enough (under the verb galloped seems logical). But where does the rest of it go? And why do we care? Do we need to know how an airplane is designed before we fly? Do we need to know the terms and parts of a sentence before we write?
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Writers On The Move: Diagramming for Grammar
There’s something happening in animation right now that’s worth paying attention to—not because it’s simply nostalgic, but because it’s deeply human. As someone who works in the mental health and creative storytelling space, I can’t help but see these conversations about art, AI, and hand-drawn storytelling as part of a bigger theme: our collective hunger for authenticity. We live in a time where AI-generated content is everywhere—convenient, efficient, and often soulless. It’s not surprising that artists and audiences alike are looking back toward something that feels more tactile, more imperfect, more human. That brings us to 2D animation, an art form that has shaped generations and now, it seems, might just be making a comeback. Here’s what Language of the Soul podcast host, Dominick Domingo, had to say on this trend: There’s been a lot of industry talk lately speculating about 2D/traditional ANIMATION making a comeback. Recent articles confirm that although Disney has not greenlit...