Thursday, November 6, 2014

Gone with a Friend?

In my reading and writing class, we are reading a novel Half-Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls. It's a great story about Jeanette's grandma, Lily Casey, an awesome heroine who lived during the first half of the last century when the novel takes place. She broke horses, survived tornadoes and floods, taught school, ran ranches, sold liquor, flew airplanes and more; a fearless woman. Stories are a good way to cover topics college students need some knowledge of such as the two World Wars, and the Depression, Route 66.

They students have a quiz and this week, they had to remember which movie Lily went to see, the first color movie in American theatres: Gone with the Wind.
The answers I got are:
  • Gone with the Wind. A boy falls in love with a girl who has bad character.
  • Gone on the Wind. The woman in the movie is a mean woman, not a good woman.
  • Gone with Wind.
  • Disappear with the Wind.
  • Go with Friend. 
I laughed out loud grading these.
another funny: A student from China was giving a presentation on New York City, the Empire State Building. She kept talking about the "alligator" but meant "elevator." Even though I corrected her, she still couldn't get it right. In the next class, some defined the word "swamp". I said, "That is where the alligators are!"

I posted audio files of their presentations on places for them to listen to. They have to write word for word what they said to analyze their use of grammar in speaking.