My high school class is reading Dracula, and to accompany our reading, we are composing our own Gothic/horror stories. My students have great ideas. I don't actually like being scared, but they do, and they've taken to the task with great passion. They might not be turning in their homework still, but all 16 students have a rough draft that creeps me out. We are in the final phases of editing, and I've offered some help to students who've sought it. There are the normal rounds of editing:
"'I' must be capitalized. No exceptions." "But Miss... It's too hard."
"You do not need to hit enter for every sentence. That does not count toward your minimum one page."
"A two-paged story should have more than one paragraph."
"You're in 9th grade. Do you know how to use a period? Obviously not." (Ok, ok. I was a bit more kind than that.)
But I also love the errors due to second language acquisition.
"Her stomach grumbled." It was annoyed from a lack of food.
"It was a dark and stormy nighty." This could get interesting. Keep it PG-13, folks.
(fighting off the zombies) "yaa. im to good." Where to start? How does one gently critique that?
"Ultra mission ! Now his job is in hospital to bring “Mega medicine” back to company . Doctor ,nurse, security guard , FBI them all zombie ! " I love my Thai exchange student.
I hope one of them wins the Halloween story contest sponsored by our library. Can you win in spite of grammar?
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