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[theburiedlife]

Explicating the poem "the rites for Cousin Vit" by Gwendolyn Brooks, which contains the line, "Kicked back the casket stand. But it can't hold her,":

"This poem can go two ways we can either say Cousin Vit’s presence was so imposing, or grandiose, that a casket could not possibly contain and not easy forgotten or she was fat."

[ingirumimus]

From a brief analysis of an argument that no acts are unselfish because all people have selfish motivations: 

"When doing a particular did or not doing that dead the conclusion of the statement considers you than as selfish or not being selfish."

What dastardly deeds conclusions of statements commit!

[marigolds]

From a quiz on annotated bibliographies, asking what the elements specific to a critical/evaluative annotation are:

"It shows the reader proof of the information by saying who wrote it and to were the information came has the information in the correct MLA form."

[big_giant_head]

From a brief analysis of an argument that no acts are unselfish because all people have selfish motivations: 

"When doing a particular did or not doing that dead the conclusion of the statement considers you than as selfish or not being selfish."

What dastardly deeds conclusions of statements commit!

Hey, at least this student "did the dead."  Or the did.  I'm not sure.

[conjugate]

From a brief analysis of an argument that no acts are unselfish because all people have selfish motivations: 

"When doing a particular did or not doing that dead the conclusion of the statement considers you than as selfish or not being selfish."

What dastardly deeds conclusions of statements commit!

Hey, at least this student "did the dead."  Or the did.  I'm not sure.

That's illegal in just about every state in the Union, I'm sure.  Also unhygienic.

[big_giant_head]

In a writing assignment, when asked what the meaning of Plato's Allegory of the Cave might be:

"...that the most random people get lucky so don't give up."

Boy, I certainly never got that from Plato's allegory of the cave.  I would have said something like "Life is like a mushroom; you're kept in the dark and fed lots of bat guano."

But you may have actually read the thing.  My students generally think that what this girl wrote is the meaning of EVERY assigned reading.

Jude the Obscure?

Clearly B_G_H needs to assign the Book of Job.  Surely any student who assigned that meaning to Job would be clearly in need of psychiatric help.

But, it all works out ever better for Job in the end!

And that is all they would remember.  They get an optimistic, individualist message from Dick Gregory's "Shame," they get it from Langston Hughes' "Salvation," they get it from Twain's "Reading the River" for crying out loud.  They seem to have been conditioned since high school to believe that any reading they're assigned in college must be exhorting them to try ever harder and never give up, and that if they do so they will achieve their wildest dreamings in the end.  So this is what they see, no matter what the words actually say.

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

[galactic_hedgehog]

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

You so you don't feel alone, I give a version of this to my students as well, for mineral and rock ID labs.  I keep telling them, write down what you actually see, not what the lab manual tells you might be there.  I've seen the samples, kiddies.  I know what they show and what they don't.

[conjugate]

And that is all they would remember.  They get an optimistic, individualist message from Dick Gregory's "Shame," they get it from Langston Hughes' "Salvation," they get it from Twain's "Reading the River" for crying out loud.  They seem to have been conditioned since high school to believe that any reading they're assigned in college must be exhorting them to try ever harder and never give up, and that if they do so they will achieve their wildest dreamings in the end.  So this is what they see, no matter what the words actually say.

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

Ooh!  Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce!  I'd love to see one of them get an optimistic upbeat message out of that!  Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?  Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations?  I'd really like to see their reaction to that.  But it's sufficiently a downer that I can't read it myself very often.

[concordancia]

And that is all they would remember.  They get an optimistic, individualist message from Dick Gregory's "Shame," they get it from Langston Hughes' "Salvation," they get it from Twain's "Reading the River" for crying out loud.  They seem to have been conditioned since high school to believe that any reading they're assigned in college must be exhorting them to try ever harder and never give up, and that if they do so they will achieve their wildest dreamings in the end.  So this is what they see, no matter what the words actually say.

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

Ooh!  Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce!  I'd love to see one of them get an optimistic upbeat message out of that!  Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?  Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations?  I'd really like to see their reaction to that.  But it's sufficiently a downer that I can't read it myself very often.

Yes, I am currently reading a paper on how it the wife starts dying because she lets go of her fantasies, accepting her husband as he is, rather than how she had hope he would be. We are not talking about an abusive or even neglectful husband here, just someone who isn't quite as expressive as the young bride might have hoped for.

[marigolds]

And that is all they would remember.  They get an optimistic, individualist message from Dick Gregory's "Shame," they get it from Langston Hughes' "Salvation," they get it from Twain's "Reading the River" for crying out loud.  They seem to have been conditioned since high school to believe that any reading they're assigned in college must be exhorting them to try ever harder and never give up, and that if they do so they will achieve their wildest dreamings in the end.  So this is what they see, no matter what the words actually say.

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

Ooh!  Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce!  I'd love to see one of them get an optimistic upbeat message out of that!  Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?  Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations?  I'd really like to see their reaction to that.  But it's sufficiently a downer that I can't read it myself very often.

Yes, I am currently reading a paper on how it the wife starts dying because she lets go of her fantasies, accepting her husband as he is, rather than how she had hope he would be. We are not talking about an abusive or even neglectful husband here, just someone who isn't quite as expressive as the young bride might have hoped for.

Yep.  I assigned a polarizing piece by William Manchester, titled "In Defense of Snobs," in which he argues that society's "democratic" emphasis on....oh heck, it's short, so I'll just post the excerpt they read here and you can SEE what I mean:

Young intellectual snobs must be suckled on the thin broth of the insipid mean; to give them a richer diet would, in the glib cliché, be undemocratic.  It is not undemocratic, of course, to provide special schools for retarded children; they are below the general level and must be brought up to it.  Thus we see again the topsy-turvy dogma – the same twisted thinking which corrupted Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The poorest are no longer necessarily the most ignorant part of society” to mean “The commoner the man, the wiser he.”  Gifted children (“double-domes”) are distrusted.  The dull and delinquent (“under-privileged,” “sick,” “victims of society”) belong to the privileged caste.  We must look down on those above us, up to those beneath us.   So sacred is this doublethink that we rarely challenge it, though sometimes it is carried to a Tartuffian extreme and we see a glimmer in the night.  The last time I visited the Barnum and Bailey sideshow, the barker interrupted his spiel to deliver a brief sermon.  He just wanted us to know that these fine tattooed, misshapen and deformed people on the stage were folks, same as you and me.  Why, you’d be glad to have any of them in your home, he said.  Sure, they were interesting.  But – and his voice dropped to a tactful whisper – they weren’t freaks.


William Manchester, “In Defense of Snobs,” Controversy and other Essays in Journalism 1950-1975. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976) 265.

From this, they get that everyone is equal and should be treated the same, no matter whether or not they look different; that privileged kids aren't educated well enough because they don't know what the underprivileged are going through; and that America is a great country because it's a land of opportunity where anyone can make good.

Jesus, people, did we read the same passage?  Have you HEARD of irony? 

[concordancia]

I don't know which sentence to include, but a student wrote here response paper looking for scientific explanations for Funes is Borges' story about a prodigious memory.

Including autism induced by a head injury.

[biomancer]

These aren't quite sentences, as I am not currently teaching a course with a meaningful writing component, but this seems like the most fitting thread for this post:

My anatomy students just had their quiz on the digestive system.  The large intestine (colon) includes several portions:  ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid colon.  One of my students just identified the "transcending colon." 

[big_giant_head]

And that is all they would remember.  They get an optimistic, individualist message from Dick Gregory's "Shame," they get it from Langston Hughes' "Salvation," they get it from Twain's "Reading the River" for crying out loud.  They seem to have been conditioned since high school to believe that any reading they're assigned in college must be exhorting them to try ever harder and never give up, and that if they do so they will achieve their wildest dreamings in the end.  So this is what they see, no matter what the words actually say.

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

Ooh!  Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce!  I'd love to see one of them get an optimistic upbeat message out of that!  Sophocles' Oedipus Rex?  Tom Godwin's The Cold Equations?  I'd really like to see their reaction to that.  But it's sufficiently a downer that I can't read it myself very often.

Yes, I am currently reading a paper on how it the wife starts dying because she lets go of her fantasies, accepting her husband as he is, rather than how she had hope he would be. We are not talking about an abusive or even neglectful husband here, just someone who isn't quite as expressive as the young bride might have hoped for.

Yep.  I assigned a polarizing piece by William Manchester, titled "In Defense of Snobs," in which he argues that society's "democratic" emphasis on....oh heck, it's short, so I'll just post the excerpt they read here and you can SEE what I mean:

Young intellectual snobs must be suckled on the thin broth of the insipid mean; to give them a richer diet would, in the glib cliché, be undemocratic.  It is not undemocratic, of course, to provide special schools for retarded children; they are below the general level and must be brought up to it.  Thus we see again the topsy-turvy dogma – the same twisted thinking which corrupted Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The poorest are no longer necessarily the most ignorant part of society” to mean “The commoner the man, the wiser he.”  Gifted children (“double-domes”) are distrusted.  The dull and delinquent (“under-privileged,” “sick,” “victims of society”) belong to the privileged caste.  We must look down on those above us, up to those beneath us.   So sacred is this doublethink that we rarely challenge it, though sometimes it is carried to a Tartuffian extreme and we see a glimmer in the night.  The last time I visited the Barnum and Bailey sideshow, the barker interrupted his spiel to deliver a brief sermon.  He just wanted us to know that these fine tattooed, misshapen and deformed people on the stage were folks, same as you and me.  Why, you’d be glad to have any of them in your home, he said.  Sure, they were interesting.  But – and his voice dropped to a tactful whisper – they weren’t freaks.


William Manchester, “In Defense of Snobs,” Controversy and other Essays in Journalism 1950-1975. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1976) 265.

From this, they get that everyone is equal and should be treated the same, no matter whether or not they look different; that privileged kids aren't educated well enough because they don't know what the underprivileged are going through; and that America is a great country because it's a land of opportunity where anyone can make good.

Jesus, people, did we read the same passage?  Have you HEARD of irony? 

And is there a podium-shaped dent in your forehead now? 

Just sayin'...I actually DID bang my head into the podium in frustration last week.  Sure, first I made sure there was a nice, soft open text between my noggin and the wood, but I still think I got my point across.

[mended_drum]

Ooh!  Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce!  I'd love to see one of them get an optimistic upbeat message out of that!  Sophocles' Oedipus Rex? 

No problem.  Mine always want to argue that Sophocles is just showing you that if you obey the gods and don't question your destiny, then you can live a happy and satisfied life.  When I ask them if a moral person should just embrace murdering his father and marrying his mother or, maybe, not attempt to end a plague killing his people, they are, frankly, rather put out.   

When I first got this sort of reaction in students, back in grad school, I accused them of behaving like Pangloss.  Then I spent a week trying to figure out why they weren't offended.

[magistra]

And in class, I find myself repeating and repeating, "read what is there, not what you think ought to be there!"

You so you don't feel alone, I give a version of this to my students as well, for mineral and rock ID labs.  I keep telling them, write down what you actually see, not what the lab manual tells you might be there.  I've seen the samples, kiddies.  I know what they show and what they don't.

It's interesting that this is cross-discipline.  I yell at mine about this all the time.  They see the vocab words and sort of take the meaning out of it, but case endings and even part of speech go out the window.  From vocab only (not grammar or syntax) they guess at what's going on and put that together.  It doesn't work.  You have to translate what the sentence is, not what you want it to be.