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[peppergal]

Student: "So Protestants and Catholics are both Christians?"

Me: "Umm, yes."

Me in the back of my head: "Why are you in college?"

I know people with PhDs who do not consider Catholics Christians.  By their definition, only evangelical Protestants are Christians.  This is a very real part of the doctrine in some churches in North America, and not just wacky fringe churches.

Of course, I have also had students tell me in papers that there were Christians around before Christ.  Their minds are totally blown when I point out that "Christian" means "follower of Christ", and it is therefore logically impossible for there to have been Christians before Christ.

[mountainguy]

Of course, I have also had students tell me in papers that there were Christians around before Christ. 

Ummm . . . what was their basis for asserting such a thing? Time travel? Multiple Christs?

[peppergal]

Of course, I have also had students tell me in papers that there were Christians around before Christ. 

Ummm . . . what was their basis for asserting such a thing? Time travel? Multiple Christs?

No, they just couldn't conceive of a world without Christians.  The assignment was to write about Iron Age religions.  One student began with "Before the advent of Jesus Christ, Christians believed that..."  He honestly had no idea that there was a time before Christianity existed.

Another assignment was a character analysis of any character from a particular work (in which Christianity is not mentioned, but that's beside the point).  One student built an argument that the main character was a Christian (for which there was absolutely no textual support) on the basis of a comparison with a perfect Christian, namely King David.  When I pointed out that King David is from the Old Testament, and therefore not Christian, the student became very hostile, and accused me of failing his paper because I am "anti-Christian".  I then pointed out that, um, I am a Christian, and in fact was serving as an elder in my church at the time.  King David, on the other hand, was a Jew.

Those are just the two examples that spring to mind at the moment.  I have bunch of them.

[silence]

"A species in a population is subjected alteration within its environment, changes occure that only happen with the entroduction of species of the same type. Charicteristis stend out and that species."


I honestly have no idea what the student was trying to say.

[big_giant_head]

At least once per semester I have a student claim that "I used to be a Catholic, but now I'm a Christian." 

On to student writing: this isn't a sentence, but a comment I found on a rough draft as I was grading the final draft.  The peer reader had warned the writer to "look for sh!t tense" (except, of course, without the exclamation point that the Mods require me to put in there).

Now, I do constantly tell them not to shift verb tense, so I hope that what she meant.

[dr_know]

Yay!  A new semester, a new (f/t) job, and new entertaining sentences!  I must have caught the exclamation point disease from my student.  Here's the opening sentence of her first paper.

"Life is nothing, without a mother!!!"

[kilgoretrout]

I'm sorry ahead of time for the long post, but trust me, it's worth it.
Context: This is a response paper to a documentary on border crossings, one of the assignment questions asked if the Minuteman Project had racist undertones. Here's the response including original errors, enjoy.

But the way I see it, this argument would still make the minutemen racist, because this is still an intolerant argument against an entire group of people.  When the illegal immigrants crossed the border, only some destroyed Rancher's properties, and just a very small portion of these people were drug smugglers, but not all.  However, most worked for competitive wages, because nobody else was willing to work for those jobs, not even for extra money.  As I relate my point to a personal argument, some say that "all Asians are bad drivers, because they have small eyes."  Yes, I agree that a lot of Asians have small eyes, but how are people so sure that every Asian person on this planet have small eyes?  Furthermore, from personal experience, all of my friends and family members are careful drivers.  As for me, I have been driving for more than five years, and I have never received a single ticket.  In Davis, there were many incidences in which people, all Caucasians, have almost crashed my car, because they did not stop at a stop sign, turned without looking, or were riding on the wrong side of the bike lane.  I am not saying that all Caucasians are bad drivers, but because Davis has a huge Caucasian population, and the population itself has both good and bad drivers, regardless of race and ethnicity.  By simply labeling bad traits or expressing an automatic hatred towards a group of people, like the sole purpose of the Minuteman's project to "keep them out," these actions would make a person racist.

[pollinate]

"A species in a population is subjected alteration within its environment, changes occure that only happen with the entroduction of species of the same type. Charicteristis stend out and that species."


I honestly have no idea what the student was trying to say.

Ouch!  My sympathies.  It looks to me like the student is putting terms and concepts together at random and hoping for partial credit.

[drlanguage]

"A species in a population is subjected alteration within its environment, changes occure that only happen with the entroduction of species of the same type. Charicteristis stend out and that species."


I honestly have no idea what the student was trying to say.

You have Sarah Palin in your class?!

[eumaios]

I'm sorry ahead of time for the long post, but trust me, it's worth it.
Context: This is a response paper to a documentary on border crossings, one of the assignment questions asked if the Minuteman Project had racist undertones. Here's the response including original errors, enjoy.

But the way I see it, this argument would still make the minutemen racist, because this is still an intolerant argument against an entire group of people.  When the illegal immigrants crossed the border, only some destroyed Rancher's properties, and just a very small portion of these people were drug smugglers, but not all.  However, most worked for competitive wages, because nobody else was willing to work for those jobs, not even for extra money.  As I relate my point to a personal argument, some say that "all Asians are bad drivers, because they have small eyes."  Yes, I agree that a lot of Asians have small eyes, but how are people so sure that every Asian person on this planet have small eyes?  Furthermore, from personal experience, all of my friends and family members are careful drivers.  As for me, I have been driving for more than five years, and I have never received a single ticket.  In Davis, there were many incidences in which people, all Caucasians, have almost crashed my car, because they did not stop at a stop sign, turned without looking, or were riding on the wrong side of the bike lane.  I am not saying that all Caucasians are bad drivers, but because Davis has a huge Caucasian population, and the population itself has both good and bad drivers, regardless of race and ethnicity.  By simply labeling bad traits or expressing an automatic hatred towards a group of people, like the sole purpose of the Minuteman's project to "keep them out," these actions would make a person racist.

As someone who has personally known Asians who have large eyes--indeed, some of my best friends are large-eyed Asians---I completely agree with the sentiment expressed by the student. I think. And everybody knows that the worst drivers are those small-eyed Caucasians, particularly when they're smuggling drug runners across the border so that they--the drug runners, that is--can destroy Ranchers' properties. Or so I've heard.

What was the question again?

You're right, kilgoretrout: well worth it.

[concordancia]

One of the positive stereotypes about Americans is that Hispanics usually avoid work.


The last paragraph of the article points out that stereotypes are not always negative, how other cultures tend to think that we are well organized, law abiding, hard working...

Most students answered this question by referring to the first stereotype mentioned: That we all have big houses and many sports cars.

The thing is, I am not convinced that they just put down the first thing, I think that is what sounded most positive to them. They are getting full credit for their big houses and sports cars, at a university where few of our students are likely to have either.

[silence]

"A species in a population is subjected alteration within its environment, changes occure that only happen with the entroduction of species of the same type. Charicteristis stend out and that species."


I honestly have no idea what the student was trying to say.

You have Sarah Palin in your class?!

Oh, duh! I was wondering why the student looked so familiar...

[conjugate]

Technically, much of what I get from students is not a "sentence," since I teach math.  However, I've gotten all kinds of things in the latest quiz.  It includes questions on how much you get back if you invest a certain amount of money at a specific interest rate compounded so many times per year.

Given $2,000 at one-half percent interest for four years, I find such interesting results as $1,645.41, or even $35.  I blame Bernie Madoff for changing peoples' expectations of the financial industry.

Another optimist gave me a figure well over nineteen million dollars.  I want to know where this kid banks, if that seems reasonable to him/her.  I don't think any of my students are Kuwaiti or Saudi royalty.

[mystictechgal]

Technically, much of what I get from students is not a "sentence," since I teach math.  However, I've gotten all kinds of things in the latest quiz.  It includes questions on how much you get back if you invest a certain amount of money at a specific interest rate compounded so many times per year.

Given $2,000 at one-half percent interest for four years, I find such interesting results as $1,645.41, or even $35.  I blame Bernie Madoff for changing peoples' expectations of the financial industry.

Another optimist gave me a figure well over nineteen million dollars.  I want to know where this kid banks, if that seems reasonable to him/her.  I don't think any of my students are Kuwaiti or Saudi royalty.

With the stories you and Polly have been telling, I'm starting to feel much better about my math skills.  Evidently, I should quit being math phobic.

[big_giant_head]

"Coach comes into the locker room and circles everyone up and the team prays in unison, sounding like a finely tuned marine core."