Student Writing Samples

Lately I have been getting some incredibly entertaining writing assignments from my students. My time with the 5th years is already drawing to a close, this is their last week of classes and five bucks says about a third won’t even show up this week (to be fair, some will be testing for University and have already told me so). Some of them are really getting the hang of this paraphrasing thing though, or at least doing more than switching a few words here and there. The following are a few of the better ones, or most entertaining.

“Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-
teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?

At first I want to say that in my opinion is the beat generation piece of crap. I don’t know but I really like reading some craftily made literary works. This poem was not also my piece of cake, but the ending is really good. Without straight word about age and characteristic of father, we could realize that his father was old man, with lot of experiences. He was “the man” who was encouraging his son. But when we read the rest of this part we sadly find out that he is already death. And the fact that he passed away is described really nicely. It is based on Greek mythology. Charon was man who carried all death to the underworld and Lethe was the river which was border between world of live people and world of those who are already gone.”


“ Paraphrases of “The Gilded Six-Bits,” by Zora Neale Hurston Page – 420
It was day. Nothing more. Joe wouldn't be coming home
as usual. No need to fling open the front door and sweep off the porch,
making it nice for Joe. Never no more breakfast to cook; no more washing
and starching of Joe's jumper-jackets and pants. No more nothing. So
why get up? With this strangeman in her bed, she felt embarrassed to get up and
dress. She decided to wait till he had dressed and gone. Then she would
get up, dress quickly and be gone forever beyond the reach of Joe's looks
and laughs. But he never moved. Red light turned to yellow, then white.
From beyond the no-man's land between them came a voice. A
strange voÍce that yesterday had been Joe's.
"Missie May, ain't you gonna fix me no breakfus'?"
She sprang out ofbed. "Yeah, Joe. Ah didn't reckon you wuz hongry."

Missie May really felt guilty for what had happened. She wasn´t able to look into Joe´s eyes because she knew, that it was bad what she had done. But on the other hand she has never considered Slemmons, the man with who she went to bed, to be better than Joe. When they were talking about him she always assured him that she cannot imagine better man than him and she gave Joe compliments. But what was the reason that leaded her to do that? It probably could be the act that showed her big love to Joe as she only wanted to gain money for her husband and herself but the way she did it is strange. That she felt guilty we can see. She knew that the following day would be different from others before. ,, It was day“- Nothing more, she expected nothing from it, there was nothing to look forward to. She knew, that she needn´t do things and obligations that she did the day before. But there is a turn. Although Joe is hurt he didn´t leave her and stay there as nothing special happened. He didn´t forgive her but wanted to give the chance to their relationship. Reading this passage you can realize that for her it is the harder situation than for Joe, to know that she hurt the man she loved. Everything changed, for example their habits that were important to them and also show the features of Hurston writing. She described in her works the lives of blacks, importance of their traditions.
The Harlem Renaissance is also known as the New Negro Movement that refers to the flowering of African American intellectual life. The center of the black writers was in the Harlem, neighborhood of Ney York City.”


"Zora Neale Hurston – The Gilded Six-Bits
His coffee cup was empty. She sprang to refill it. When she turned from the stove and bent to set the cup beside Joe´s plate, she saw the yellow coin on the table between them. She slumped into her seat and wept into her arms. Presently Joe said calmly, “Missie May, you cry too much. Don´t look back lak Lot´s wife and turn to salt.”

Back in eatonville, Joe reached his own front door. There was the ring of singing metal on wood. Fifteen times. Missie May couldn´t run to the door, but she crept there as quickly as she could. „Joe banks, Ah hear you chuckin´ money in mah do´way. You wait till Ah got stenght back and Ah´m gointer fix you for dat.“

I chose these two paragraphs, because in my opinion they show the shift in Joe´s attitude and also his love for Missy May. In the first one, she is feeling really guilty for what she had done. She thought that Joe would leave her, but he did not. So she feels grateful for him still needing her and she tries hard to be a great wife and do anything he wants to undo at least a bit of what had happened if it is possible. When seeing the coin, which is the symbol of her past actions and of the roots of their present unhappiness, she starts to cry. But he loves her so much, that he tells her not to. Joe uses the allegory of Lot and his wife who turned back when she wasn´t supposed to, and died because of it. I think that he loved her so much that he could not leave her. He probably forgave her and didn’t want her to be so miserable and sorrowful, even though he didn’t forget and wasn’t able to treat her the same way he used to.
In the second paragraph, the change happens. He definitely needed some time to reconcile with the facts, and maybe the child helped it, but the forgiveness was finally “complete”. After a long time he tied up to the old traditions, which I think was a sign, that he really loved her much, forgave her and wanted their relationship to be as it used to be. Her reaction was very happy, since she immediately reacted and kept on the old game."


"F. Scott Fitzgerald – Babylon revisited
Page 375, chapter one, line 7 to 14:
He remembered thousand-franc notes given to an orchestra for playing a single number, hundred-franc notes tossed to a doorman for calling a cab.
But it hadn’t been given for nothing.
It had been given, even the most wildly squandered sum, as an offering to destiny that he might not remember the things most worth remembering, the things that now he would always remember – his child taken from his control, his wife escaped to a grave in Vermont.

Paraphrase:

Visiting Paris again, Charlie remembered much squandered money and his wasteful past life with his wife who is already dead. He had given so much money as notes to an orchestra for playing a single number, or to a doorman for calling a cab. Charlie had handed out his money, because he wanted to show that he is wealthy and he can afford that. But it was worth for nothing. Now, Charlie is feeling badly about that, because he is without money, his child is taken from his control, and his wife is dead. The happiness is gone, and now he is conscious of being lonely and unhappy.

This is a good example of “Jazz age”. It is the period in literature after the WW1, when new inventions and American prosperity made people wealthy. They were discovering a new traditional values and modern trends in social behavior, they started to visit night clubs, and they started to spend their money. It is also Charlie’s case. He came to Europe, to Paris, with his wife, because he had become rich, and because of advantageous currency exchange rate. He enjoyed European life, which was cheap – in compare to the American life, but he squandered much money, started to drink, his wife died. These conditions made him really unhappy and he started to drink very frequently that he was rarely sober. Then his daughter was taken from his control and he became very poor. “Jazz age” was exactly about that. It is about luxury life, fun, social life, and then a great depression, drugs and other negative things."





In my 3rd year British Literature classes we are slogging our way through the introduction-y part of Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” The teacher I took over for (she went on maternity leave) concluded her section of the course with a test, as to be expected. I had the pleasure of grading about half of these. It was difficult of course because it was someone else’s test, and I didn’t always know how much depth she was looking for, even with the key. It was also helpful and inspiring though because that’s where I got the idea to spend some time on satire in the first place. Most of the students correctly identified satire as a new genre in Enlightenment literature, and Swift as one of the most well-known satirists. But when I asked them “co znamina “satire”?” (what does satire mean) they couldn’t say much more than “ironic,” which was yet another word they’ve learned yet failed to assign any meaning or deeper understanding to. Yep, another amazing example of their capacity to absorb a remarkable quantity of material but have no idea what it means, simply store it away until it needs to be regurgitated. Anyways, the 5th years may be leaving now, but I still have a good ten weeks with the rest of my students, so we are going to DO this satire thing, nice and slow too. When we’re done I am going to show them a clip from “the Onion” about wearing baby skulls (*apparently a satire about blood diamonds or something. Thank you Kehan).

Like I said, the first part was pretty rough going—Swift tends to be a little verbose, and these kids are not used to reading 18th Century English. They’re still struggling with much more basic material. In a few of my classes we just got to the part where he drops the bomb, where he proposes eating the excess infants. When I asked the students what was going on in that paragraph girls looked up at me shocked and said “Cannibal!” and some of the boys, who are usually orbiting around an entirely different planet in their minds, snapped to attention and started chuckling. This is going to be fun.




Finally, in my 2nd year English class we just took our Module 6 test on “People.” This mostly included physical characteristics, personality traits, and some good ol’ multi-part verbs because those are in pretty much every unit (did you have ANY IDEA how many multi-part verbs English has? It eats the Slovaks BRAINS!) Now, I am just teaching these kids their standard English class (GAH! Lord help them…) which more or less means I take them on a guided tour through a book, orating exercises and reiterating instructions. Even when it is not assigned though I think it is important to incorporate a good amount of writing into the curriculum, because just taking “matching” or “fill in the blank” tests isn’t going to help them attain fluency in English. Therefore, on the test they had to analyze a few pictures. The first one was actually the lady on the cover of the most recent Saint Mary’s magazine (Thank you SMC…). It was a pretty good close-up, and the kids could really explore their newly-expanded lexicon with words like “fringe” (bangs), “wrinkles,” “fair complexion” etc. For the next question I let them choose one of three photos. They had to physically describe the person/people in the picture, then speculate about what he/she/they were doing. Earlier in the year I was having a blast developing my teacher-drawing skills, but I’ve fallen out of practice or just couldn’t get inspired enough to create these images, so I used a few “star sights” or whatever those pictures that constantly-creeping paparazzi get of actors off-the-clock are called. My mom left a stash of tabloids here on her recent visit, who’d of thought publications bereft of any academic credit—or maybe any credit at all—would aid me in stretching these young minds…

The photos I selected: One was of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise watching some kind of sporting event. They are sitting together but focusing on something across from them (i.e. game). Tom looks intense, Katie has her chin resting on her hand and looks a little whimsical. Not too many kids chose this picture, but out of the ones that did only one girl (who knew who they were…) thought that it was a married couple. Most of them said things like, “they must be good friends but they are not in love,” or that maybe they would be in love in the future. They often sighted a lack of physical contact as the cause, which I guess makes sense to them based on all the hickeys and practically dry humping I’ve witnessed lately. Apparently young Slovaks equate relationships with a strictly physical meaning.

Another picture was of Johnny Depp walking around wearing blue and white striped pajamas. I think it is supposed to be from a movie set or something. One of my favorite little students wrote this:

“Picture 2: the man in the foto number 2 is wearing pyjama (pyzamo). He has shoulder-length, dark brown hair (really dark brown, maybe closed to black). He has beard and moustage too. He has type of cool style beard. He look tyred. He is wearing white blue pyjama.

I think: He is walking and thinking about what he will get on (some extra clothes) :D and he sees himself in mirror he is scaried  He look really bad. He had hard night. He is also think what his wife do, because his wife isn’t at home. She is traveling and last night she slept in a motel. He also must do some extra work in house (ex. Cook dinner, clean house) He lives in flat and in the picture he is walking over hall. This day is really bad and hard for him!”

Another one of my excellent students wrote about the same photo, saying:

“This tall man has dark brown hair in shoulder length. They are curly. He has oval face with moustache above lips and beard. His lips are not very big, but they are not very small too. Apart from lips are hidden by moustache. He has dark eyes, maybe dark brown or black. His eyebrows are like men’s. Thick and near eyes. He has darker skin complexion. He is in ther thirties.

I think he just woke up from his bed, because he is in pyjama. He only take his trainers and go out. His face show that he is cheerful and probably not bad-tempered, because his smile is real and his happiness is going out of his person. He is confident, because he doesn’t care about what people are saying about him and his clothes. He is maybe artist, because these people are crazy enough do things like he. He might think about where he is going, because of hand in his hair, what looks like thinking. For him is comfortable going out in something like pyjama and because of this crazy thing he can’t be shy—He hasn’t got a girlfriend because she never agree with his clothes, but maybe she is crazy like he. His life is good. I want to say him “bon appetite” because he might be on his way to breakfast. He is a little bit sleepy so he need a caffe.”

Finally, the third photo, and the one most of the students wrote about, was of one of the guys from “Jersey Shores” or whatever that show is called doing tricep-dips on a bench on a beach shirtless. He’s got tats, and the sun is in his face so he is scowling just a little. Aside from the slobbering teenaged girls that said little more than “he is beautiful, his muscles are so beautiful” (yeah, I took off points…) a handful of boys wrote about this picture too. Perhaps a disclaimer is necessary—Slovakia is still a remarkably homogenous society, and this includes physical characteristics as well as mentality. Racial profiling is more of a given than a controversy starter, the reasons of which are so complicated and so sticky I can’t even begin to go into them now. But basically when average Slovaks see a person with darker features he/she immediately thinks “Roma/Gypsy” and the whole laundry list of connotations that comes with. Behold…

One girl wrote this:

“That guy looks very scary for me. He must be angry. I think he is exercising because he hasn’t another thing to do. He might be in a prison yard. He must exercise every day. On his body has tattoo. I could see it because he had not T-shirt. He has only green trousers and red shoes.

He has short brown hair nice oval face but his eyes are brutal and brown. He is well-build  He could be in jail because he might have a fight with another guy from his gang…”


But wait, then there was this kid’s…

“This man look well build and really strong. He has pretty big muscles. He has tattoo on his right upper arm and under his arm. He has dark long-brown medium size hair. He has pretty big ears. He doesn’t have a beard. He looks like 18 or 20 years man.

It looks like this man is a street fighter, and he is prepairing for battle now. I think he is from some gang or something, because he has pretty scarrry tattoo. I think he was in prison too. Maybe he isn’t a gang member. Maybe he is soldier. Yes maybe he is soldier in Iraq.”

I mean, what do you say to that?! More than anything I just want to get these kids generating language (at all levels, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th year). I don’t want to intimidate them into silence with too many corrections, because sometimes getting anything out of them, let alone anything with an ounce of creativity (no matter how prejudiced…) is an epic battle. So, for now I’ll continue making a few grammatical and spelling corrections but overall KEEP THEM WRITING!

Sexy Boy

So every Tuesday I take the 6:50 bus to Brezno in the morning, and usually
I get in a good little erg (rowing machine) sesh at the Hotel Academy, and maybe do a little fresh produce shopping, before taking the 5:07-ish bus home.

In Slovakia, a lot of bus drivers—and truck drivers—trick-out their dashboards with personalized décor. I’ve seen windshields trimmed in flags of Slovakia, or banners of darn-near naked women decoratively draped above a pile of grime-covered stuff animals trapped in the chasm between the dashboard and the windshield. There’s the bus with a hanging disco ball to jazz up the otherwise drab cab area, and I can’t leave out the bus with the thoughtful dream catcher, maybe for those naps the co-drivers take in alternate shifts on overnight cross-country journeys. From taking the same busses I’ve been able to surmise that most of these people drive the same rig all the time. It’s not like they assemble in a lot every morning and draw straws for who gets the “good” bus that day.

Aside from knowing just how they like their seats adjusted, or if third gear tends to stick a little, it is only natural that these men (I’ve yet to see a female bus driver) are inclined to dress up their “offices” with a little signature style. Just like office cubicles the front end of a bus is pretty non-descript but a lot of hours get racked up there. It’s better if there is something nice to look at. And you can tell quite a lot about a person from the way s/he chooses to decorate…

For example, ever since I’ve taken that 5:07-ish bus, the regular driver has been known amongst some of my fellow teachers and I as “sexy boy,” and not for any dark-horse crush we harbor (some women love a man in uniform…) but rather for his interior decorating.

In “sexy boy’s” rig the giant sun visors are lined with tasteful upholstery fringe—a white lace chord trimmed with blue and white tassels. An angle Christmas ornament with a golden gown, wooden wings and a shock of blonde hair bounces back and forth in cherubic exultation. Some kind of coin affixed to a string gently sways back and forth next to it, and hanging from a suction cup a tiny cardboard cutout is enshrouded in a white infant’s t-shirt proclaiming “Sexy Boy” in electric blue.

The bold (or at least random) t-shirt in contrast to the rest of the subdued ornamentation is not the only juxtaposition; “sexy boy” doesn’t seem to belong in the driver’s seat of a public bus.

Physically he seems much younger than most Slovak bus drivers—maybe in his late twenties or early thirties. He has a slight build—no paunch to stretch an ill-fitting polyester uniform over, or practically rest in his lap as he criss-crosses the Slovak highway infrastructure day in, day out. In fact, he always looks put together, and his attire is never slovenly. His angular jaw is accentuated by a well-trimmed goatee and the buzz cut he keeps his light brown hair in makes his Bruce Willis-esque hairline actually look good instead of unfortunate. His chic rectangular glasses give him an intellectual air and make me wonder what’s going on in his brain while he makes laps around Central Slovakia. All in all he is well-kept, and appears as if he should be some urban hipster, working as an IT specialist or accountant and having intellectual or snide conversations about sub-cultures with equally yoked people, not a bus driver in rural Slovakia.

One day a few months ago the bus pulled up on schedule, the familiar tassels clanging into each other as the bus eased to a stop. But instead of handing my fare to “sexy boy,” there was an imposter at his post! At first I though sexy boy was simply sick, or maybe he had jury duty or something (do Slovaks do that?). For the next three weeks though he failed to appear so I resigned myself to the fact that he was no more. There was nothing wrong with this new guy—he drove just fine and didn’t make me overly car-sick. But the bus décor just didn’t seem to match—or rather not match—him quite as well.

Last Tuesday, I climbed the steps of the 5:07-ish bus, and to my surprise sexy boy was at the helm! He even seemed more chipper than usual, but maybe that’s just because I hadn’t seen him in a while. Just like old times he tooted his horn and gave a friendly wave at every passing bus, making sure to greet his fellows in the brotherhood of public transportation. He also had the same long conversation with one of his buddies on the two-way radio all the way down the switch-backs from Zbojska to Tisovec. Yup, sexy boy is BACK!

BURLY! Off Road Weekend in Tisovec!

I mean, I'm not really in love with off-roading—I see it as sort of a hassle and I'd rather just tromp through mud with my own legs or on a bike, but I ain't never seen the town like this!

Since Thursday night the center of town has been unofficial campgrounds, a festival-like atmosphere is permeating the place and after the week of rain the sun is out and the sky is blue! People are OUTSIDE!!! WOOOOOT!

Check out some of these photos, whether or not you like off-roading you have to admit some of these guys are studs…

Blaaah...

Forgive the long period of silence, but I’ve been feeling rather blah lately, the only thing “epic” has been my level of confusion and disenchantment. Part of this is due to finally coming out of a long, dark winter, plus my craving for Colorado and my people. A large part is because whatever I’m trying to accomplish with my “classes” right now seems utterly unproductive and pointless. In the three or four weeks since I’ve had the reins I have not had one complete week of classes, and even in best-case scenarios I would only see most of my classes (all 5th year American Lit and 3rd year British Lit) once a week for 45 minutes.

Once a week, 45 minutes! Yeah right! If you jog for 45 minutes once a week, is it going to do a dang thing for your cardiovascular system or in anyway impact your physique? Or if you go on a bike ride, lift weights, play tennis or even speed walk for only three quarters of one hour every seven days, it is going to make dent on your health? Heck no! So how are we supposed to accomplish anything lasting or worthwhile in such brief and infrequent meetings?

And so it goes, the rookie teacher becomes a little disillusioned when the weight of reality sinks in. Some of the rose colored tint has rubbed off, that once hopeful glimmering optimism is a little tarnished and the whole world no longer feels like it will be redeemed because of one literature class.

ALE (“but” in Slovak—I’ve totally assimilated the word into my vocabulary…) Not everything is in vain, there are some good things going on. Perhaps I should start with a little context—these students are studying American and British Literature primarily to absorb facts about authors and texts (rather than any literary content) for the Maturita, which is the high school exit exam they take during their 4th and 5th years of gymnasium. It most closely resembles a giant final where the students have to stand in front of a panel of teachers and regurgitate facts they’ve memorized throughout high school.

I was an English major in college, mostly because literature blows my mind, I love to read it then “make it modern!” according to Barry Horwitz. If I’m about to tell you why a certain author had a certain effect on the world, or why a poem belongs in a certain genre, I want to be able to say why. I want to look at those “Form points” (yeah “attacking literature”! I’m totally using my binder from Mr. Hilbert’s AP English class as a supplement) to find the “Content.” So, in my class we read. Instead of a cursory overview of “The Great Gatsby” we read the short story “Babylon Revisited.” Then we paraphrase, or take a paragraph or passage and put it into our own words, trying to pick out what is really going on in the literature and why it is important.

At first I got mostly plot summaries—“This story is about… In this story the main character…” But as we progress forward, tweak it and I clarify more and more what I’m looking for I’m getting some really great stuff. Even when the content is not fully there (English is these student’s second language after all, and they have NEVER been asked to read let alone paraphrase literature before…) it is so awesome to see some students bending and stretching themselves. On account of limited class time and a lack of resources I’ve been utilizing e-mail to get them the texts and get me their homework. The e-mail is great because it allows me to actually be able to decipher what these kids are writing (reading handwriting is HARD! And Slovaks make their “t’s” weird), but it also allows me to reply to students individually, and fast.

When I grade I am a huge comment writer- questions all over, interesting stuff underlined or highlighted. Getting a marked up assignment a week later though has sort of lost the thunda. Even if I manage to get these kids fired up during class any flame of excitement or inspiration is sure to be thoroughly extinguished by the time we meet again. When I can pop up in their little mailboxes though, and demand some clarification directly (even if I keep saying the same thing—“why did you choose this passage? Why is it important, what does this tell us about Fitzgerald? What about the Jazz Age, can you connect this to another author/work we’ve read?), the kids often feel called out and obliged to respond. While many of my comments are meant just to keep their brain juice percolating so they can dig deeper next time, a handful of students have actually edited their initial assignments or replied to my questions and a thoughtful dialogue ensues.

British Lit is with the 3rd years, so on top of not having the most amazing English comprehension yet, they are trying to wade through a mess of “thee’s” and “thou’s.” The first thing I did with them was to read Shakespeare’s sonnet 130 (“My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun…” paired with Edmund Spencer’s sonnet XV. These students haven’t really read much poetry, let alone talk about different structures of poems, so we’ve been having a blast. Check out a few paraphrases below.

So yeah, not everything is working out perfectly. And even when I seem to be moving in a positive direction I get assailed by bouts of self-doubt—what am I even DOING! I’m not qualified to teach these kids… I have NO IDEA what I’m talking about! But I guess you start where you are and go from there, and even if I’m not imparting all of the correct information on these students at least I’m getting them to speak English and use their brains a little right? And secretly I think they’re having fun too.