Keep in mind that I preserve the original spelling, grammar, and punctuation in every quote.
"Spain had been overwhelmed with all the fighting that they could not partake in World War II."
"If Hitler had not stepped into Spanish Civil War to help himself in the soon to come world war, the outcome could have differed severely."
"Maybe one day someone will come up with a dance where the man follows the woman because this way to sexist feeling to me." [Once again, native English speakers.]
"I love that about this dance that it goes side to side instead of back and forth. No other dance is like that and it makes it more appreciative when something is its own. Do you see why this dance is considered sexy yet?" [I don't know about the dance but the sentence structure is the unsexiest I have ever encountered.]
"The conquistadors looked at the Spanish like they were Gods. The myths and strong faith of the indigenous took a toll on their logic but that was what they only knew back them (sic.)" [I wonder what took a toll on this student's logic and led him to forget that the conquistadors were Spanish.]
"Countries learn from the mistakes that were made in history and religion should never take so much control over the choices we make to have a strong economical country." [We have all learned that having religion in control makes our country very uneconomical.]
"Today in our country the military would never let religious traditions affect the choices the government makes." [Isn't it great to be young, idelistic, and naive?]
"As most people know, the United States has the reputation for putting our nose where it doesn't belong. We jump into other countries with good intentions, but most of the time it just seems like we are trying to win a popularity contest." [This is A Real American Student, if anybody is curious.]
4 comments:
I'm not sure how I feel about posting samples of students' writing--even if anonymous--for the sake of humor. Sure, some of it is amusingly bad and some of it is surprisingly insightful, but you might be getting carried away. They're your students, after all, and they worked hard to earn your respect and recognition (presumably).
This isn't to say that I don't share your opinions about them, but it's just a thought.
I am recognizing the effort and as an act of recognition I am recording this here for posterity. :-)
At my school, someone used to print and distribute "A Child's Garden of Worse," which was a collection of the most poorly written of these kinds of sentences. Then someone decided that this was belittling of the students and trivializing of their work. While I have some sympathy for that position, I find it hard to imagine, given how badly the sentences were written, that the students took their work even half as seriously was we did. What is so debilitating, at least for me, is finding sentence after sentence after sentence like your "this way to sexist feeling to me" in paper after paper after paper; we need some kind of pressure valve to release the frustration, and publishing the sentences anonymously, without any kind of withering commentary (for example), seems to me a more or less harmless way of doing it.
That's exactly how I feel, Richard. After slogging through dozens of painful examples of student writing, I needed to finnd a way of enjoying the process of grading. It isn't like I posted the names of the students or anything like that.
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