Student Stories Part Quatre
Here are 8 more chain stories from my students. They range from awkward and sad to awkward and unintentionally funny, with lots of awkward in between. I love these kids, though. They do try. Ha ha. I’ve dropped a black bar on top of any real names used. Read through these, and let me know what you think.
Alright, which one was your favorite, and why? 
on November 21st, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Depending on the level these kids are at, I would tend to gloss over the minor things, (a vs an, failure to use irregular past tense forms, unnecessary commas, etc), to say nothing of things that an English teacher would correct but native speakers do all the time (like tense shift and sentence fragments beginning with “because”), and focus more on correcting things that would actually impede understanding
The substantival use of an adjective (in box 2 of the first one) springs to mind as something worth correcting. That’s something we just don’t do in English (well, not with most adjectives), and somebody who hasn’t studied other languages isn’t going to readily understand what’s meant until he gets to the next clause and figures it out from context.
The transitive use of “spoke” in the third one is worth talking about for sure: a native speaker would probably use the doubly-transitive “told” in that sentence, but it at least needs the plain transitive “said”. With “spoke” it’s not obvious how “English story” is connected to the rest of the sentence, if at all. When I first read it, I thought it was some weird Japanese topic thing, added onto the end of the sentence as a grammatical absolute construction with no obvious relationship to the rest. (We do have absolute constructions in English, but they go on the beginning of the sentence, and they generally contain a verb.) It was only after I started to write about how it impeded clarity that I realized it was *supposed* to be a direct object and the actual mistake was a simple matter of verb selection. It’s actually a really good example of how such a seemingly unimportant thing, like using one verb instead of another even though they have basically the same meaning, can have a profound impact on the reader’s ability to understand the sentence.
As far as the composition (the actual _story_, irrespective of grammar), I like the first one and the last one best.
on November 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 am
Wow, that’s a lot of analysis up there.
I also like the last one best. “Don’t mind! See you!” That right there is near enough the full extent of most of my students English ability!
Toms last blog post was: Poetry about boozing.
on November 25th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Lol, what goes on in those kids minds, I do not know - but I’ve got to say this set of stories is my favorite set so far. Exploding coins to same-sex marriage, to people not minding upcoming death?
Do you ever ask them where they get their ideas from? I’d love to teach a class like this (I’m aiming to be a JET/ALT someday)!
on November 25th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Ah, yes, gotta love the group that tries to get by with a brown nose special. Deas the best teacher in the world….well, I’m sure it’s true, but still …that wasn’t the assignment, was it?
on November 29th, 2008 at 10:34 am
> Wow, that’s a lot of analysis up there.
*shrug*
The English language is a topic of special interest for me.
Jonadab the Unsightly Ones last blog post was: Hepburn Must Stop
on November 29th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Shop till you drop was a little morbid.
freedomwvs last blog post was: Thanksgiving Out and About
on December 8th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Jonadab - how am I supposed to follow up after a
bookcomment like that!? Ha ha ha.Tom - I just love the total disregard for human life encompassed by the “Don’t mind. See you!” at the end. Brilliant, in a harsh way. Ha ha.
Alfred - I have no clue where they get their thoughts from either, but it is a fun ride. I think young students everywhere are kind of slightly off-the-wall. When I get to see into their addled imaginations, though, my day at work always improves. Ha ha.
Mom - I don’t mind a brown nose special once in a while. So long as the remaining 3 stories from the group don’t follow suit. Ha ha.
Freedom - morbid, indeed. But I once had a student who killed every character in all of his group’s stories. I think he did it for a laugh, more than as a statement of some kind, but still. Dark, dark humor. (Which is why I feel comfortable attempting Jack Handey jokes in class on occasion.)
on December 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
I did one of those blank comic things with a class once. One student chose to make one character’s only line of dialogue be “DEATH!!!”. It didn’t matter what was going on around him. I gave him a good mark ‘cos it was funny.
Toms last blog post was: Poetry about boozing.
on December 12th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Tom - I remember a while back, Aaron made his own version by blanking out the dialogue bubbles in a Penny Arcade strip. Ha ha. Also, seems like we have a similar grading scale - funny is good. Correct is better, but funny is good.