"Favorite" student sentences

[RatGuy]

First sentence in a Freshman Comp research paper:

In [Author's] ["Short Story"], a woman named Jane is married to a man named John.

I'm going to guess that her wallpaper is a tad bit yellow.

[marshwiggle]

Probably an autocorrect error, but I enjoyed thinking about the fMRI imagining things:

Past and current studies have used fMRI to imagine a child's brain who has ADHD while doing tasks.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

[Langue_doc]

First sentence in a Freshman Comp research paper:

In [Author's] ["Short Story"], a woman named Jane is married to a man named John.

I'm going to guess that her wallpaper is a tad bit yellow.

Correct!

Stu was repeatedly urged to reread the story. Did Stu reread the story? Stu's account of the narrator's room:

However, she is mistaken, and the room is meant for mentally ill patients. It is also meant to be a prison in a way by trapping
patients so that they can't leave or hurt others.

Other gems:

Jane is dealing with postpartum depression, so her husband brings her to the home where the story takes place. Since John is a physician, he undermines the value of mental health.

She tries to conceal herself and her emotions by hiding her tears when she cries and her journal, where she goes on rants about the house, specifically the wallpaper and how she feels about it.

Near the end of the story, John's sister, Jennie, comes to visit and help around the house. She believes that Jane's writing is what's making her sick and believes that Jane is making problems out of something that doesn't exist. By doing so, her mental state is getting worse. John and Jennie do not believe her, so she is even more determined to get the woman out of the paper to prove to them that she was not "seeing things".

...since she creeps around in the paper and hides from Jane and everyone else. It is known that John is sleeps with Jane at night and is not always around during the day. When John is sleeping in bed with Jane, the woman hides and is trapped in the paper.

[AmLitHist]

Wow, that even gives some of my recent comp papers a run for the money!

Most-if-not-all of my students seem to have lost their damned minds on the last papers of the spring. (Citation? What's a citation?  We've studied those since Week 5?  Really?) So at least this sentence from a struggling Comp I student made me giggle, rather than gnash my teeth:

The best thing about going to Lake of the Ozarks even if you don't like water is that there's always a big bomb fire every night after dark.

(Maybe I could print out all these papers and toss them into one of those bomb fires?)

[apl68]

I've been to Lake of the Ozarks, and I didn't see any big explosions in the evening.  Mostly I just remember having some really good trout.  That was some years back, though, so maybe things are different now.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

Wow, that even gives some of my recent comp papers a run for the money!

Most-if-not-all of my students seem to have lost their damned minds on the last papers of the spring. (Citation? What's a citation?  We've studied those since Week 5?  Really?) So at least this sentence from a struggling Comp I student made me giggle, rather than gnash my teeth:

The best thing about going to Lake of the Ozarks even if you don't like water is that there's always a big bomb fire every night after dark.

(Maybe I could print out all these papers and toss them into one of those bomb fires?)

Sounds dangerous. ;)

[mamselle]

First sentence in a Freshman Comp research paper:

In [Author's] ["Short Story"], a woman named Jane is married to a man named John.

I'm going to guess that her wallpaper is a tad bit yellow.

Correct!

Stu was repeatedly urged to reread the story. Did Stu reread the story? Stu's account of the narrator's room:

However, she is mistaken, and the room is meant for mentally ill patients. It is also meant to be a prison in a way by trapping
patients so that they can't leave or hurt others.

Other gems:

Jane is dealing with postpartum depression, so her husband brings her to the home where the story takes place. Since John is a physician, he undermines the value of mental health.

She tries to conceal herself and her emotions by hiding her tears when she cries and her journal, where she goes on rants about the house, specifically the wallpaper and how she feels about it.

Near the end of the story, John's sister, Jennie, comes to visit and help around the house. She believes that Jane's writing is what's making her sick and believes that Jane is making problems out of something that doesn't exist. By doing so, her mental state is getting worse. John and Jennie do not believe her, so she is even more determined to get the woman out of the paper to prove to them that she was not "seeing things".

...since she creeps around in the paper and hides from Jane and everyone else. It is known that John is sleeps with Jane at night and is not always around during the day. When John is sleeping in bed with Jane, the woman hides and is trapped in the paper.

Muriel Sparks' "The Comforters" would make a good companion assignment if she's going to take things that way...

M.

[Langue_doc]

Same class, another Stu, another story. Stu is a native speaker of American English.

Throughout  the  entirety  of  "A  Rose  for  Emily",  it  is  never  disclosed  the  townspeople's actual identities.

...it explains how the townspeople are indecisive when it comes to interpreting her life as it is unlike any  other  life  they  have  seen  before.  Her  detachment  from  reality  and  the  town  allows  the townspeople to ponder about her life until concrete evidence Is brought forth.

As the situation escalated Miss Emily diffused it because she did not want  to  be  poked  and  prodded  by  the  townspeople  and  this  was  a  situation  that  fed  into  her process of disconnection from the town.

this was seen as the icing on the cake that served as a sendoff for Emily and this would eventually lead to her death.

In conclusion,

the  townspeople  constant  bombardment  of  her  life  caused  Emily  to  cut herself  off  from  her  own  society.  And  the  relationship  with  Homer  left  her  devastated  which unplugged the cord and left her disconnected from reality with no chance of returning.

[apl68]

Some interesting use of metaphors there.

Maybe that's kind of appropriate, given that it's a paper on a story by an author whose own sentence style has earned a certain notoriety.

[AmLitHist]

From a Comp II student (to whom I apparently didn't teach a damned thing):

The dismissal of Roe v Wade creates an escape goat for persons in power to defend the dismissal of all legislatures past the eighteenth century, including not only reproductive rights but all rights of women.

There has to be an end to this grading soon (one way or another).

[Langue_doc]

What on earth is an escape goat? Is this the goat that escaped from the bomb fire in Lake of the Ozarks?

Ah, now I get it, thanks to autocorrect (Grammarly).

[Anon1787]

From a Comp II student (to whom I apparently didn't teach a damned thing):

The dismissal of Roe v Wade creates an escape goat for persons in power to defend the dismissal of all legislatures past the eighteenth century, including not only reproductive rights but all rights of women.

There has to be an end to this grading soon (one way or another).

Another goat has escaped!

Stu: "When the president needed to have an escape goat from their wrongdoings, they would often say that the Supreme Court did not do their job properly."

I think that the president needs to order the secretary of the interior to do something about the crisis of escaped goats.

[mamselle]

Fear not. Not all goats are escape goats. Here are some that are not escaped at all...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKt3S9_No-M

M.

[Anon1787]

Fear not. Not all goats are escape goats. Here are some that are not escaped at all...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKt3S9_No-M

M.

Those goats are nicknamed Harry Houdini, Dorothy Dietrich, and David Blaine.

[mamselle]

Or Willow, Tatum, and Penny....

;--》

M.