Sublime Effervescence: Middle School students on Great Expectations
So, I teach an after school/ summer English class at a tutoring center and for my own sick humor I am making my students read Great Expectations
These are some of their comments, presented with grammatical mistakes intact:
“One of the main problems in the book is probably the language. It’s too old and so are the object. Who would know what a jack-towel is? it’s useful that they have footnotes on the bottom, but it’s annoying to look there everytime.”
“It’s like one problem after another.”
“So in my opinion the book would be more interesting summarized and shortened”
“Why I thought this book was sad is because Miss Havisham’s wedding cake is in the corner covered by cobwebs. I thought it was sad because that tells you that Miss Havisham might have had a wedding, but her husband didn’t show up to get married.” (this kid speaks the truth. Out of the mouths of babes and all)
“That is all I can really summarize I can do more but that will be too much summarizing.”
“I like books about human relationship, but this book is too long, it it a ok book but just too long, I would not read it unless I really have to”. (Yes, and you really have to)
“Other than length, everything else fine for me”
“The book, “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens was disappointing. With a book title like that, I thought I would like this book a lot, and interesting to read, but it turns out that I only like it only a little bit.”
I wish I had saved what they said about Kafka. I almost choked on my tears of horrified laughter
