Somewhere between D and F...

Well I've been holding it down here at camp laryngitis for the past couple of days. I haven't eaten anything really substantial since...well...probably Saturday night. It is now Thursday. You do the math.

But that is neither here nor there. Our students had speaking tests and to accompany them, essay tests. Oh those are fun. We administer the speaking tests and grade the essay tests, native English speakers that we are. As I said in a previous post, imagine someone gave you a sheet of paper and said, "Here. Write an essay in Arabic." What if that same person said, "You have 30 minutes. Go." Imagine the pressure! The stress! And you're only 11 years old! And you've had a full day of school already! All you want to do is play computer games or watch TV!

Well...hopefully you'd come up with something better than this, when asked to summarize as much as you can on a unit you had read about Mars (mainly about how we've sent Pathfinder, and how we don't know if there is life or water).

[Note: question marks denote where I couldn't read what the student wrote]

Mars is 1990 years old start is mars is rianin(?) crop(?) too quick

inticre(?) and to do much mars is world out here

mars is sun relax is out herer to much

mars is world one is to bed is relax

mars is too to do much and did quite

saw much rain to rain saw too much to do

muching there cratin (?) more incre (?) to dict insiting

mars moon is mars as to many muching to did

inciting there to did quick to gary (?) They are to many exellent

mars in the is paridise and did very hansome marse

is hansome mars is very cold and hot add house

summarize mars is summarize as you can about

unit on mars as to much mars

much as you can about mars

mars is to big moon.

See? Hard.