The Ennui of Endless Amusement

The first time I heard that sixflags was an adventure park I thought that it wasn’t going to be exited.” Well goodness. There are enough things wrong with that sentence I’m not sure where I should start. Capitalization of proper nouns? Content? Spelling? Pronoun-verb agreement? Some of that is boring (though necessary). The rest is what moves it from the realm of badly-written sentence to studentism.

Specifically, I am focusing on “it wasn’t going to be exited.” I know this student meant to write that it wasn’t going to be exciting. Really, now? First off, what high school freshman, writing near the beginning of the school year, is already so bored with life that their end-of-middle-school trip to Six Flags isn’t going to be exciting? What have they done in their life? Seriously? Mayhap this is why I have such trouble keeping their attention in the classroom.

Holy Ennui, Batman! It’s a bored generation!

But the real issue is this: The amusement park “wasn’t […] to be exited.” Holy Shades of Halloween Horror Specials, Batman! The amusement park that you can’t leave. Do they keep packing more and more people through the front gates like commuters onto a Japanese Bullet Train? Sorry. That was probably a misinformed generalisation, but it served its purpose. Or perhaps it is such a labyrinthine mess that once you’re in, you’ll never find your way out, despite pebbles, breadcrumbs, or golden threads. You’ll just be there, forever, until your teeth rot from amusement park food–or conversely, you starve to death because you can’t afford the outrageously expensive food any longer and there’s no way to make more money where you are.

Goodness. The scenario is getting worse by the moment. Do students know what they do to their poor teachers? All of these thoughts from an error-ridden sentence. Had I known even one teacher went places like this in their head from student writing, I would have ensured they had more to play with. Maybe that’s just me. Anyone else?

Those nice young men…

Anne Frank had a Dairy?

I was taught to be observant, and to take note of things of interest. I recall family conversations centering around misplaced modifiers (now that I teach them, I know what they are called)–those intriguing bits of sentences that make you tip your head to one side and look puzzled, if you pay attention. They have always amused me. Now, I wish I could draw the wealth of fun word pictures unknowingly provided me by perfectly serious students.

Julien Dupré “A Milkmaid With Her Cows On A Summer Day”

The first studentism I collected was during my student teaching. I planned and taught a unit, all on my own, to a class of 8th grade honors English students. It taught me many things, not the least of which that Anne Frank, with all due respect, had a dairy. It is a simple typo that I happened to see far too many times as I graded that first set of essays. But the crowning glory was when I learned that “In the dairy of Anne Frank, Anne and her family lived for two years in the attic of her father’s factory, which was behind a bookshelf.” (I’m afraid I can’t cite any of my studentisms; I didn’t keep any attributing information to protect the innocent.) It left me wondering: how big was that infamous bookshelf?

Not Anne Frank’s father’s factory bookshelf–but a very cool bookshelf nonetheless.

That was the first time I realized that a teacher really ought to know how to draw. It also made it difficult to take any of the essays on a very poignant, serious subject seriously at all.

As mentioned previously, I have collected an alarmingly large number of these little gems in the years since. I do hope you enjoy them as I do. They certainly make grading hundreds of essays more palatable.