It's been almost a year now, so I feel that it's finally appropriate for me to reveal this deep, dark secret of mine, that's been haunting me since last summer.

I was a SAT English class grader.

I was employed at a small SAT tutoring service based in the Bay Area, working with middle-schoolers and getting paid fast-food wages. (I think I understand the American education crisis better now.) Not that it was a bad job; it was rewarding work and we got to use a very nice office. And while the students were for the most part hardworking, and many made marked improvements during the course of the class (which I like to attribute to my mad grading skillz and helpful comments, rather than the work of the, you know, actual teacher,) there were some incidents that were too... interesting not to share. All quotes are reproduced verbatim.

One assignment was a short passage (on skateboarding in Japan) followed by a number of critical reading questions. Fairly simple, right? Maybe not for one student, the entirety of whose answer was "no." I also had a student who submitted only "I dont like Japanese, they are bad" as an answer.

Another stumbling block for some of the kids was the questions that asked students to use a vocabulary word in a sentence. While nearly all of the students were able to fulfill the technical requirements of the assignment (with the possible exception of the one who responded "He cliched by boilerplate,") a few of them seemed to have missed the point of the exercise...
"I aske the teacher what do depart mean."
"I went to see if they do know what is goodness mean."
"I want to know if you know immutable mean."
"there are a lot of word we didn't konw about like ponderous, verbose these word are hare to kone about it."

Then there were the students who, it seems, just guessed at the meanings of the vocabulary words.
"I trite and hackneyed."
"that inviolable was impossible."
"She is beautify and reactify."
"he extol the provident"
"is there are a comply commend about you."
"That guy like to transmute because cognate super."
"crazy weird people amorous to commute."
" My characterized is ostentatious."
"When our teacher lead us correctly, we all knew that he mislead us."

And I just don't know what to make of this one: "Today, we learned about static and for homework, we had to put our spelling words in chronological order."

A few of my students used personal anecdotes in their work, which is understandable at that age. It's a good practice, too, as it provides the student with an easy basis for writing, and the teacher (well, grader in my case) with a unique opportunity to get to know the student. Some things, however, I could've done without knowing.
"My favorite movie is the Increble. My favorite character is nFrozone because he is very funny. I also loke hom because I like ice...Frozone is cool and he is skinny like me. He can freeze people like an icicles. Iwatched it 23 times." (Then again, maybe I shouldn't be that surprised. My sister watched the original Toy Story no fewer than a hundred times.)
"the game is so much fun I can't even stop think , and is so much fun . "
"IS IMPOSSIBLE MY FRIEND CAN BEAT ME AT COMPUTER GAMES"
"The day I played games the whole entire day will always be clear in my mind...I felt my life was useless when my mom picked me up to go home."

The best one, though, was:
"The clandestine cult, kept hidden for years, wary that the strange creatures they called 'women' would attack their computers and erase all their game files."
I gave the writer an A.

I enjoy having a politically aware class. A student well-informed in the important issues can be a great asset to an intellectually rich classroom environment. However, all political discourse is not equally valuable.
"In seventh grade I learned about the Medieval Time. People back then started wars for fun."
"War is never good you always die."
"Frreedom is only sometimes contemporary for busy people."
"That the people should not use the internet for bad. It could start a neaulear war. It could affend people. that the person should not use the internet for bad."
"In the current events that the other country is planning to either bomb America or they will threatening to start World War 3.That the other state wants to bomb America or World War 3.The other country is mad that the United States."

Q: "I like to go to the beach." ==> Improve this sentence.
A: "I like to go to the beach."

Q: Topic: accidents ==> Write a topic sentence for this topic.
A: "I don't know what it mean but is geart word."

Q: Topic: absenteeism ==> Write a topic sentence for this topic.
A: "I know is hare to write them is juat that they are not the same thing."

Q: "The officer at the desk feared the prisoner in the interrogation room would escape." ==> Edit and rewrite this sentence.
A: "The desk is in the offica feared the person in the interrogation room would be like a cape."

Q: Write your thesis statement.
A: "We can be not be a do dog if you are a pople." (Seriously, can anyone tell me what this is supposed to mean? I've heard theories ranging from beastiality to "ghetto" culture.)

"Ive carefully studied end marks and commas in our textbook therefore,I use commas for appositives .For series quotation marks to enclose titles of chapters and semicolons to separate independent clauses not joined by and but or nor ,for or yet."