Don't Brust To Me. I'm Serious.

I have four days left. In four days, a horde of students is going to descend upon my classrooms, filled with all the joie de vivre and enthusiasm for knowledge that you might expect from a post-holiday student, or possibly from a floor lamp. I have anticipated this difficulty, and I'm trying to get ready for them by making English IV as exciting as possible.

But before I can do that, I need to organize what I left behind in a hurry at the end of English III. As I'm poking through dangerously precarious stacks of student writing, I'm finding some good stuff.

As usual, a lot of it comes from students wrestling with slang. I taught them one slang phrase in each class: knock it off, what's up?, give me a break, chill out, take it easy, and the like. Students' brains, however, are often a bit like blenders: what you put in isn't exactly destroyed, it just doesn't come out in the same configuration.

That's why, when I asked them to write a sentence using the slang phrases above, I got answers like these, from the close . . .

I am working hard, so please give me a bread.
Just break me off!
You are bothering me. Cut it off.

. . . to the not-so-close.
I hope you will fed it out soon.
Don't brust to me.

Even specific questions didn't always pan out. Those irregular verbs are tough!
36. Write a sentence using the word 'dude.'
Answer: She dude the test carefully.

We spent some time last week visiting my parents in Canda. While we were there, my father picked up a bar of dark chocolate that was 99% cocoa. Inside the wrapper was a foil insert labelled "Tasting Guide," which purported to tell you how to enjoy chocolate that's 99% cocoa (short version: you'll probably hate it the first few times; just keep eating it until you like it). In the same vein, I offer you a reading guide to the final slang screw-up: for best results, imagine one of my students actually attempting to greet an English-speaking person using these words.

42. What is the slang phrase used to greet someone?
Answer: gerk
This is crossed out, and after a little space is written nerd.
This is again crossed out, followed by nut.
This is scratched out, and she finally decides on jerk, which she underlines for emphasis.

At any rate, I'd better get back to my piles of paper. I know I've been delinquent with this space, and I intend to improve it in the coming semester. Until then, give me a bread, OK? In fact, make it a whole sandwich. It's lunchtime over here.

Dave