Friday, September 28, 2007

unintentional humor

As I'm finishing the very last of the student journals, I now encounter this attempt at practicing the expression "shoot for the stars." The student wrote a group of sentences that put the expression in context. The end result looks a bit like a poem.

Behold:

Jane shoots for the stars.
She wants to be president.
This is difficult for her.
Because she is deaf.


Yeah, that's right. Fuckin' deaf people aiming too high in life. They should know-- their-- place.

UPDATE: Here's another one I love: in practicing the expression "steer clear of," a different student writes:

We steer clear of the word "ugly" around Ms. Kim.

I'm still rolling.


_

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That little bit of vers libre could also be seen as a statement on discrimination. That's the way I read it.

Kevin Kim said...

Charles,

I hadn't really revealed my true thoughts on the matter, but yeah, I'd agree that's a very plausible reading. Of course, it's often hard to be sure just what my students are trying to say...


Kevin

Unknown said...

"We steer clear of the word "ugly" around Ms. Kim."

Oh my, that is hilarious, and not something I needed to read at 5 am with a mouth full of coffee!