Rocky, Karate Kid, Jerry Maguire, The Comebacks, The Blind Side: I’m a sucker for a sports movie with an inspirational montage showing the athlete, after a long struggle, finally getting their groove. Stallone making it up the gigantic flight of stairs, Macchio finally nailing those kicks, Cuba scoring touchdown after touchdown- you just know that when it comes to the big match or game they are going to win.Well, what if they didn’t? What if after all that dedication and hard work they lost?
That’s kind of how I feel at the end of every quarter. After months of shedding blood, sweat, and tears to provide my students with winning writing skills, I find these sentences in my students’ FINAL essays- the essays that should showcase all the wonderful skills they acquired:
The 1980’s is what made the 1980’s so different from other decades.
I would love to be able to experience this eventful event.
There are still many stuff we can’t explain.
T-shits can be very expensive.
You don’t realize it until you actually realize it.
Is it too early to have a drink?
Dedicated to Hula Buns who wrote, “I want to know how many made up words you see in your students' papers? I would love to hear some of the things they come up with.” There aren’t many made up words, but they do come up with some pretty crazy sh.. things.
14 comments:
I'm sure the one about the 1980's is quite profound if you read it after smoking some dope.
I've never owned a T-shit, but that's because they are quite expensive.
Can't say I've realized it yet !
*slides eggnog over*
*dies*
You gotta admit it IS funny stuff. Maybe these are the students who skipped class a lot... or had three finals on the same day...
I loved when students accepted the first suggestion the spell-check gave, resulting in such gems as "This defiantly illustrates that Regina changed[...]" (instead of 'definitely,' which was outlawed anyway) and "meter ochre results" (instead of 'mediocre').
Who knew T-shits can be expensive?! That is totally news to me. Sigh. Sorry, clearly they just weren't paying attention to their wonderful teacher. Booo them! And thank you so much for the dedication, I really appreciate it!
To answer your question: It is definitely NOT too early to have a drink! Bottoms up!
O-M-G! Not only did I have to make my 16 year old remove his headphones to listen to those sentences, but I had to interupt my teacher-wife who was finishing wrapping presents. I knew she would appreciate the post. She wanted me to comment that teachers didn't drink before becoming teachers, but they sure do afterward.
Thanks as always for sharing your pain in the classroom with us, My Captain.
Happy Holidays,
-Jimmy
Oh my goodness! Every single one of those quotes are so incredibly epic. I love it. SO MUCH. SO MUCH, that I am using improper punctuation.
By the way, I hate it when people use an apostrophe in decades. So annoying!
Merry Christmas!!! Love, Meg
I've always LOVED eventful events!!
Too bad school doesn't happen in later years. Not saying it's never to late to learn but...It's so wasted on kids.
Am I just realizing the perfect realization, or what??
Merry Christmas, Missy!
I see a couple of these fortunately brief sentences that say the same thing twice!
Great examples, thanks for the laugh! :)
At least they make you chuckle!
Apparently someone never invested in the letter R.
Oh, and I gave your blog a shout-out today during my week of blog-spotlighting. Happy holidays!
I'm sure teachers would drink less if they didn't teach. The mental stamina one needs to weed through sentences like those means a relaxing beverage is in order.
And I agree with the sentence about the 1980s. Like it's so obvious, no explanation needed. Perhaps he could've included a link to the lyrics of "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel.
http://www.teacheroz.com/fire.htm
That's f'n hilarious.
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