10/15/19

For Dumas, Wherever He May Be

A former student asked me via "social media" why I had not posted to this blog in a while. I have no good answer aside from, "I have been lazy." So, for Mr. Dumas, I present my favorite responses from last year's end-of-the-year student surveys. The questions are in bold, and my comments are in (   ). I'll post again soon. I have stacks of essays to grade. If you haven't read a lot of Poe, there may be a spoiler...


What was your favorite work we read and why?
- The one where the ape killed the girls. I was so mad that it was a monkey that was the murderer that I am sure I will never forget that story. Although I can’t remember the name of it. (Lasting impact.)
- The Great Gatsby because it was very interesseting and fun to read. (Interesting is, I think, what we are going for there.)

What was your least favorite work we read and why?
- The one with the monkey because why would there be a monkey? Like who is gonna guess that?
- The Crucible. Twas confusing. (Tis true.)
- The Crucible because Abby ruined it.
- The short stories because they weren’t short.
- The Crucible because it was about whiny teenagers blaming people for things they didn’t do. (Hit too close to home, did it?)
- Everything from the Modernist era because everything from the Modernist era is boring and pointless.
- Ethan Frome was my least favorite work because the book itself angered me. The characters were all pathetic and the story itself annoyed me. However, I have just now realized that I don’t like the characters because they relate to a lot of people in my life. (There's an epiphany for you.)

What did you like most about English class?
- I really don’t like much about this class.(Nothing? Throw me a bone! Something...)
- It was a class of all girls. (See * below)

What did you like least about English class?
* - It was a class of distracting girls.
- The short quizzes downed my grade. (So didn't you're grammer.)
- Quizzes, essays, mostly all the stereotypical disliked things in English.

On a scale of 1-10, how much effort did you put into this class and why?
- 7: I don’t understand a lot of this so I didn’t try very hard. (How very de rigueur.)
- Considering my grades, I’d say a six. (I'd say less.)
- 6; only when I wanted to. (Which was 60% of the time?)

In this class I learned:
- that I cannot get away with murder. (Detective fiction class...)
- everyone has secrets.
- That no matter how careful you are Sherlock could figure out you did it.
- You can live without your phone.
- How to be on topic and off topic at the same time. (It's a skill.)
- Never take out your phone in class.
- To write an essay in a day. (Wrong lesson.)
- I learned how to write a three page essay in a day. (Again, wrong lesson.)
- Mr. Chaffee knows that I edited the format of my papers.
- That college level classes are hard if you don’t show up.
- I have learned not to watch Big & Chunky while working on projects and how important rough drafts are. (I do not want to know what Big & Chunky is. I really don't.)
- That every piece of each novel, story, or poem can be openly discussed. Everything deserves discussion. I also learned how to properly head an essay. (There's two ends of a spectrum.)
 
Do you have any suggestions about how to make the class better?
- Less essays, but we know that ain’t changing. ("Fewer," not "less." And no, it ain't.)

When did your senior-itis kick in?
- The 2nd day of high school; the first day was pretty chill.

Here's hoping you have more than one "pretty chill" day. Back soon with lines from student papers. I have a lot of essays about The Crucible, which usually produces some hilarity.

J