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Dr. Judith Coats has developed a passion for grammar and writing that started in high school but became a particularly focused interest in her freshman year of college. Her professor, Mrs. Jeanine Smith, possessed an infectious joy and love for writing that sparked something special in Judi’s heart.
From that point, Judi altered her future goals to include getting an education degree in secondary English in order to teach English as a second language overseas. Judi opted for secondary education since English as a second language (ESL) was not a specified field of study at the time of her college career (1975–1980).
Judi met Dave Coats in college, and they were married in August 1979. She taught high school for a few years after completing of her undergraduate degree while Dave finished up his requirement for a master’s degree. Dave and Judi Coats went to Haiti and used the skills from their studies to help many business leaders in the country to improve their English communication.
After eight years in Haiti, Dave and Judi lived in Canada for six years. Even with busy days at home with three children, Judi worked in the public schools of Saint John, New Brunswick, to help with students in remedial reading. She instructed students after school for one year.
In 1996, Dave and Judi moved to Wisconsin. During the ensuing years while Judi was teaching college English classes from 1996 to 2015, Dave completed his doctoral program. Judi then completed her master’s degree in writing from Northern Michigan University and her doctorate from Regent University. Her dissertation is titled “The Reed & Kellogg System of Sentence Diagramming and Its Implementation in Higher Education.”
She was inspired by her research project during her doctoral studies to put together a simple primer for those interested in sentence diagramming. She theorized that educators did not “like” diagramming because they did not fully understand it and did not know how to use it in the classroom. Some educators have labeled the Reed and Kellogg system as “old school,” so they reject it entirely. In the twenty-first century, the Reed and Kellogg system is reappearing in textbooks as a form of rhetorical grammar—one way to talk about grammar through visual, logical sequencing. Judi’s desire is to publish a tool that explains in simple terms the method of diagramming in a simple process and that will give educators ideas on how to use sentence diagramming in the classroom.
Judi believes that all of us are visual learners to a certain extent unless we are physically blind. This scientific method of sentence visualization can be fun and effective. She has broken down the process into four parts: “The Foundation,” “Phrases and Clauses—Adding to the Foundation,” “Sentence Structures,” and “Analyzing More Difficult Challenges in Diagramming.” She has added some teaching ideas along with sample sentences to diagram for practice and the keys to those sample sentences. Realistically, anyone could grasp all of the diagramming concepts in one day. The task is not daunting.
