Help!

Before I get to the sentences, two pet peeves to mention. 1. I don't put a lot of sentence fragments in these posts because they aren't "funny," but they are annoying and prevalent. Fragmented sentences reveal fragmented thought. 2. My students overuse the verb "help," often using it to vaguely replace a clearer verb they can't be bothered to think up. What does it mean to "help the environment?" Yet the sentence will have no other verb to indicate what we are to help the environment do. Anyway, to the sentences; as always, these are from student work and my comments are in ( ).

- The court system has to find a way to deter future crimes committed by youth. (Shouldn't we deter the youth and not the crime?)

- Marilyn Monroe's modeling career was at an all time high.

- Talking could become a peace of mind feeling for both parties involved.

- ... then while wearing a pair of rubber gloves, the needle is placed in an autoclave. (Never mind what an autoclave is, he has a needle that can wear gloves!)

- ... cars that run on energy... (As opposed to my car, which runs on positive thinking.)

- When one exercises it enhances many assists of health.

- When an individual is active it helps them having a good mental and emotional aspect on life. (How is your aspect on life?)

- One specific group in society would be students of all ages. (Yes, very specific.)

- If you think your going to do poorly you might actually will.

- Americans are on the decline in the world's industry.

- The kidney and liver are important organs, in the human body, for the need of survival in life.

- People did crime even before artists singed about it. (This sentence is a crime.)

- When a person demonstrates weight control... (Ta Da! Weight control!)

- The number of people that can vote in the United States has grown incredulously over the past hundred years.

- (This I saw on a sign in the hall advertising a competition between classes.) Win the covenant class disco ball! (Is it the same disco ball that God gave unto Moses signifying that his were the chosen people?)

- As the saying goes, "laughing releases endorphins, endorphins make you happy." (I love that old saying; mom used to say that all the time.)

Happy Holidays!!

J

Oh, the Woes

I am in the middle of reading two large stacks of rough drafts. Two things that continue to haunt my existence as I read: 1) redundancy; 2) meaningless statements / statements of the obvious. You can imagine the fun when the two are combined. It happens most often in introductions; by far the most B.S. shows up in the first paragraph. They seem to have no clear idea how to get into an essay and just write whatever mindless drivel they can to make up a brief paragraph. Then they repeat it all in the conclusion, because they have no idea how to get out of an essay either. And my efforts at teaching them achieve only moderate success. Anyway, as always, these are real sentences from student work, and my comments are in ( ).

- The hero status these infamous stars are receiving is a disgust today's society.

- If anyone of a different religion was located at the spot in question then problems would be less of a fuss being made. (This paper was about the "ground zero mosque"... if it was about anything.)

- STDs are becoming more common in high schools and young adults. (I hope your high school doesn't have an STD.)

- This would also give people more of a pride in what they have because they have errand it.

- Homer and the Odyssey wrote original Greek epic poems.

- Mourning without coffee is like sleep.

- Nature to Emerson is inspired by Nature. (Redundant and meaningless!)

- Nature is a very important aspect of society. (They just have no idea what words like "society" actually mean. Their indiscriminate use of words is simply aggravating.)

- Once the person is asleep doctors or people running the execution simultaneously push two buttons and are injected with a lethal substance that ultimately causes death. (So, what happens to the prisoner when the executioners have committed suicide?)

- Policemen stop crime from emerging. (Yes, we must keep crime hidden.)

- In the English language, there are many words that can have multiple meanings. (See what I mean about vacuous and meaningless statements of the obvious?)

- Happiness is the key in which how someone defines the level in how successful they really are.

- (Malcolm, in Macbeth, was) air to the throne.

- Different people do things differently. (Whoa, deep. I need a minute to process that life altering revelation... Ok, done.)

- Oil spills are caused by pollution. (That's not what I heard on the news...)

A final question: What is the difference between "die" and "die off?" For some students it is not enough that something die, it must "die off." They seem to think dying off is more dramatic and impacting phrase. I don't see it, but maybe it's just me. Until next time...

J

Define This?

When I do poetry units I give the students vocabulary quizzes. I pick words from the poems and they have to define them; for homework they can look up any words from the poems they don't know and write them in their notes, then use the notes on the quiz. So, they can make a cheat sheet. Some don't. The following are some definitions from the Renaissance Poetry unit quizzes I just graded. I put some of the actual definitions in ( ) as well as a few comments.

wanton - (loose, lascivious, immoral) 1. wish for or upon something; 2. to want something; 3. covered with snow; 4. Chinese soup

sickle - to be kind of sick

grove - (small wooded area) to be angry

myrtle - (the plant) 1. peace; 2. persuade or impel; 3. a dead girl in the bathroom at Hogwarts who has seen the Basalisk (There is a character in Harry Potter named Myrtle, I guess.)

gall - 1. a species of bird; 2. an area by the ocean

roam - wandy (No, I don't know what "wandy" means, nor what this person was trying to write)

woe - 1. to try to persuade; 2. another word for mating

woes - to stop or slow down (Yes, I put the same word on two different quizzes and some of them got it wring both times.)

kirtle - (a skirt; this one was defined for them IN THE BOOK) a pot used for coffee or tea

dumb - (as in mute) 1. a state of mind; 2. in love

folly - 1. a place with trees; 2. to be happy; 3. an area of land with water

tempest - 1. to be slightly tempted; 2. religious building; 3. a music person; 4. a high ranking religious person

sickle - ill

dun - (dull grayish brown) 1. to be finished; 2. idiot

foregone - to go somewhere before you're supposed to

Mr. Webster is rolling over in his grave...

J

What I Wished For

I suggested to some fellow teachers and administrators that we re-organize our English 12 curriculum into a series of ten week classes, more like college classes. I won't go into all the reasons, but I was a little surprised when it was met with so much approval that we are now planning it for next year. And guess who is doing the work! (I do have help, obviously.) Anyway... the following sentences are from various assignments, but as always, these are real sentences taken from student work. My comments are in ( ).

- Billy was a "date monster" he would pray on women.

- ...he is still reeking the benefits.

- ...the best power of all was that she could see into the feature.

- On one spring day in Las Angeles. (Anyone ever been to Las Angeles?)

- ...elementary students will be able to live the best live they can possibly live.

- Situations when assisted suicide is there, is very tender. (What?)

- Penn Yan School should wear uniforms. (The students can wear what they want though.)

- A male dog was brought in by the owner of a puppy mill with prolapsed reproductive parts. (Whose reproductive parts now?)

- Sex ed. classes prevent teenagers from pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and gives teenagers reasons to stay absent. (I guess they're home practicing what they learned in sex ed class.)

- STDs are becoming more popular in high schools. (Either she meant "common," or teenagers are bragging about some weird things.)

- ...causing people to live their lives in complete horrification. (How dreadful.)

- The game of football is simple, but has many rules.

- Smoking has been increasingly becoming one of the higher results of death. (One reason not to die: you might start smoking.)

- ...the economy has flocculated.

- A major component of capital punishment is the death penalty. (Indeed.)

- Hitler's actions ended in 1945 when he took his own lives. (He was a cate with 9 lives.)

- This issue has become an increasingly talked about and debated issue across the world the issue.

- Did everybody forget what Muslim is? (I guess maybe.)

- John Proctor's first mistake was gratifying Abigail's lust for his flesh. (Well put.)

- The Reverend feels even more guilt for the lies which were put to death.

- John showed his true courage when he straight-up told the court that he was a lecher. (Yup, he did it straight-up, not bent over.)

Se you next time.

J

Heroes (And a Few Villains)

Some of my seniors read selections of Beowulf, and their final assignment was to "update" the epic. They had to come up with a hero who represented our culture's values and describe his deeds, etc. Some of them fell back on comic book heroes, and some choose real people, while others invented their own heroes. Here is a quick list of the mundane, the weird, and the funny heroes they came up with:

- Superman

- Batman

- Michael Jordan

- Shaquille O'Neil

- Brad Pitt (who battles the evil media)

- Sly Stallone

- Average Joe

- The Beauty Fairy

- Spartacus the Professional Bowler

- Transformo

- the Comatose Kid (who battles Obesity)

- the Gamernater (who battles the Fitness Queen)

- Captain Fluffy and Captain Neon (who battle the Evil Fartknocker)

- Super Hero Guy

- Mr. Apology

- The Golden Knight (who quits hero work after he gets paid)

- Otterphant (half otter, half elephant)

If nothing else they were entertaining to read!

J

Long Enough

I am unable, because of the district's web filter, to access my blog from school. You know, because of all its objectionable content. I finally remembered to bring home my notes so I could type this up. A quick aside: my students often include in their introductions meaningless statements of the obvious. For example, in a Compare / Contrast essay they will write something like, "While these two things are different, they are also the same." Or in a personal narrative they might write, "Everyone has parents." It's like they need someone next to them who can say, "Duh, really?" every time they write some meaningless drivel just to fill space. Kind of like the drivel of the last few sentences of this blog. Anyway, as always, these are sentences taken from student work, unedited, and my comments are in ( ).

- Reading and writing play hand in hand with each other. (How nice of them.)

- Without the thesis, the key idea and writing can not be well written.

- Grendel is afraid of Beowulf because he has never seen a man who has been able to out strengthen him.

- ...other than smoking, I knew of no other factor that could have triggered her stroke. (Must have been the decades of smoking then. Go figure.)

- No linger was the room filled with fake light.

- My parents are loving, hard-working people with gray hairs in their forties. (If their gray hairs are 40, how old are his parents?)

- I experienced a great change within my mental ways of thinking. (Department of Redundancy Department)

- Dimmesdale took an oth of celibusy. (Well, he did get busy.)

- He and Hester had adultry.

- Dimmesdale held the stance of a Reverend. (That is a hard stance to be in for too long.)

- Beowulf has massive amounts of honor. (Honor out the wazoo, really.)

- I always suspect him to win.

- His heroicness effect simpathy for him.

- Emotions are feelings in which others can't see. (Uh huh, sure they are.)

- When Beowulf goes to die he is all like I'm going to die in pride. (And then the dragon was like, Step off dude! And Beowulf was all, You step off!...)

I should have more very soon. My stack of papers to be graded grows by the day.

J

Mea Culpa

The following are responses to surveys filled out in the last week of school by my English 11 and 11E students. Some are funny, some I think are interesting. The "Mea Culpa" in the title of this post is twofold: 1. The length. 2. I feel as if I am tooting my own horn a bit at times in this entry and I don't mean to. But sometimes the things they write make me wonder about "education." My sometimes extended comments are in ( ).

What was your favorite work that we read this year?

- My favorite book was The Great Gatsby because it is a piece of work that caught my action.

What did you like most about English?

- I like our random talks.

- I liked the conversations we had every day about random things. (Trust me, these conversations were not that random. Ok, some were random, but many were less random than the students realize.)

- Mr. Chaffee's sarcasm.

- I liked that you didn't make things boring, just what we had to learn was boring.

What are one or two important things you have learned this year in English?

- I would say I have learned a lot more than two things. (Response ended here.)

- It is important to think for yourself. (Nobody told them this before?)

- I've learned that I should not plagiarize. (She did it twice.)

- Nothing really. (So sorry.)

The rest are from 11E: What did you like most about English 11E?

- ..we talked about our own ideas.

- Chaff-tangles. (For group discussions we arranged the desks around the perimeter of the room, but they didn't really make a regular geometric shape, so they called it a Chaff-tangle.)

- Being able to talk about things w/out having to raise hands and be all strict.

- It's the one class I could actually relax and laugh in.

- I liked our conversations where we talked about life. It was refreshing to learn / talk about things I wanted to discuss. (Evidence that our "curriculum" has become irrelevant?)

- I liked that we actually had intelligent discussions and they felt productive.

- That there wasn't any pressure like traditional classes in English, we could come in and discuss things without worrying about what's going to be on the test, which allowed us to develop better ideas. (Exhibit A on how testing is evil and corrupting.)

Did the teacher give you enough feedback on papers?

- Oh yes, I got plenty of "redundant" and "vague." I'll never be redundant / vague in my essays again.

- Yes you did give me enough feedback but for some reason I didn't fix the things you told me to fix. (And what do you think the reason is?)

- Yes, there was enough green ink on papers to kill me.

Do you believe you have improved as a writer this year?

- Yes, as shown in my writing folder. I'm figuring out how to use a paper to support my thesis instead of going off on random tangents. (Good start.)

Did you like / dislike the journal writing?

- I liked the journal writing when we had prompts because when we just write our reactions I just spilled crap on the page. (Well, you shouldn't keep crap so close to your journal.)

On a scale of one to ten, how hard was this class?

- I would say it wasn't really hard but the way you grade papers is more critical because we are expected to rise above average writing. (Hope it wasn't a struggle to "rise above average" in an advanced class.)

What have you learned in this class?

- I believe that I have become a more independent writer and thinker. You really pushed us out of our shells, which I needed. (True story.)

- I learned that you should come up with your own ideas and beliefs, and be able to think beyond the literal stuff.

- That I need to become more independent.

- Not everything has to be structured / organized; writing should be interesting and enjoyable. (Interesting writing? Hmm...)

- Actually, I can never recall what I've learned when I'm asked but I think I've learned more about life than English. (English IS life, sir!)

Is there anything else you'd like to say on any topic whatsoever?

- This year has taught me that grades truly don't matter. It took me all year to realize this but over the past couple days I've come to understanding. Grades are simply a number. Humans let a # control their lives. How silly. If there's one thing I could pass on to the 10E class it would be this. They are like me last year, always worrying about grades. There's so much more to life than a number.

I was thrilled to read this because this student was the most concerned with grades all year. She is not alone. The educational system takes everything that they do and puts it into a giant trash compacter and spits out a bunch of numbers, then tells them that those numbers reflect very important things about them. It's hogwash. I have told my students that grades and standardized testing (numbers and data) are the heroin of the educational system: they are terrible for our health, but nobody can, or wants to, figure out how to kick the habit. Anyway... for now, no more teachers no more books!

J