November 17, 2014

As I See It

We have all seen online lists of autocorrect gone wrong. But with some of my students’ essays the typos are pure coincidental genius.

The mistakes are probably a combination of an overreliance on spell-check and the tablet’s evil-evil autocorrect function. Whatever it is, the serendipity of the words joining together in just the right order gives me a much-needed chuckle when the burden of grading 50 essays every other week makes me want to chew on an electrical cord.

From more than 1,000 students in composition courses I’ve collected my favorite typos over the eight years that I have worked as a professor of English at Pacific Union College. Here’s what I’ve learned. Note: The students’ phrases are in quotation marks.

Perhaps because this is an Adventist institution, students more often than not offer insights in comparative religion: “For all intensive purposes,” I’ve found that “Christians claim to help out their bother in need,” which sounds like a solid decree, as it is easy to help a brother, but helping a “bother” takes the golden rule to new levels.

14 1 0 4Christians, however, are not the only ones who show up in essays. I have learned that “Buddhists are known to not purposefully step on an aunt to preserve life,” which likely helps to keep family harmony. Moreover, not only was Buddhism a religion advocating pacifism, but “Confusionism was prevalent in China, consisting of collected sayings attributed to the philosopher Confucius.”

It is no wonder, with these beliefs about world religions, an “angle of the Lord” may appear from time to time, or that people who dabble with the occult may become “denim possessed.”

We have faith, however, that when we face “trails and tribulations,” turning to the “prodical of the lost son” may help us to “follow God’s diving command.” Reading God’s Word may even help us to finally come to a fashion decision about “the right to bare arms.” Additionally, people may even be forgiven for committing the “sin of adulthood.”

How Things Work

In addition to religious commentary, students wrestle with ethical concerns that revolve around how to be better stewards, especially when it comes to contemplating how to protect our natural resources while also attending to the needs of the self. They are very concerned about finding “ways to get rid of the world’s waist,” and “illuminating pollution.”

Stewardship also addresses caring for the animals on our planet. In a paper on beagles being used as test subjects for makeup, one student believed: “Tasting animals for research is just illogical,” which I’m sure is a principle on which we can all agree.

They also have a clear understanding of cause and effect (“people reek what they sew”) and know that if we don’t take care of our world, this could lead to everyone riding “doom buggies,” because by being careless with our resources we “inevitably reap havoc.”

They recognize how economics works (“The housing bubble eliminated treasonably priced housing”) and that our government sometimes acts illogically (“The TSA confiscated all of my toilet trees”).

In their essays, however, they show that, ultimately, living a “Christian, mortal life” (or a moral one) is a fight to balance the desires of the self over that of others, while recognizing that “the thought of our own morality frightens us and has us trying every known elixir of youth,” and “self of steam is also very important.”

It seems pretty clear that our health message is getting through at the subliminal level when I encounter the following sentences: “I avoid eating high-carbonated foods like pasta” and “Students need strategies to avoid giving in to beer pressure,” as well as focusing on the need to minister to “drug attics.” Moreover, “Patients in a vegetarian state should be allowed the right to choose euthanasia.” Only on an Adventist campus (or in Berkeley).

Main Message

Essays are not the only places I encounter these gems. Occasionally a student e-mail will have me grinning all day, not because they’ve missed class, but because of their wonderful sentences. As far as student excuses for missing classes go, I get the usual notices about food poisoning and having a headache, for which I express sympathy. But so far I have only had one excuse of “post dramatic stress” and another for “ministerial cramps,” leaving me utterly stumped about how to respond.

And while I sit at my desk above the “whiny roads leading to Angwin,” I contemplate the one student who claimed that “writing a good sentence is such an accelerating feeling,” and realize that when it comes to allowing technology to dictate whether our written prose is perfect, “resistance is feudal.”

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