Finished the bulk of junior research papers. Hi-dee-ho. There will be a few stragglers coming in this week - those whose first "final" draft couldn't get past my initial scan, those without a clue concerning MLA style.

I'm provoked by a sentence from one student. It goes like this (with the film title changed):

Opposed to Citizen Kane were it appeared to be boring to the teenage society but this appears to be because teens are not educated enough to understand parts in the film and as if the movie would be more work to watch rather than free time like movies students would watch in school.

This extravagant almost-sentence is not presented that you may gasp at the terrifying state of high school writing, writers or writing teachers. The largest number of my students would be hard pressed to come up with anything close to this; and, of those that could, most would catch it and fix it before turning it in. I don't remember exactly what I wrote in the margin - probably something not so helpful like: "This is not a sentence. I don't understand what you mean here" (liar). Then I revised it. For a moment I was too impressed by my ability to work such magic as this:

On the other hand, Citizen Kane would bore teenagers because they would not understand parts of it - a film they should study in school rather than one they would watch in their free time.

I did not offer this rewrite to the student. Should I have? I don't know. Compared to the original, mine may not be such an improvement. Of course, the most glaring problems are gone, but I also seem to have stripped the original of its own thought-quality - its own voice. I regret the loss of "more work to watch" and "not educated enough".

Some harsher critics might object that the original has no thought-quality - that it displays nothing so much as the absence of thought. I think otherwise. In fact it seems to have several thoughts going on almost simultaneously. This writer is trying to say not only that the movie bores teens but that there are reasons for the boredom. The writer distinguishes between school films you must work at and freetime films you can just enjoy. That repeated "appears to be" marks another nice distinction.

Other things.

Today is my brother Jay's birthday. We are just back from a short supper at Tamales. Jay has been my brother since before I knew he was my brother, since 1964 when we met at JCHS in Fr. Warren's French class. Who could know then that our lives would end up so wonderfully entangled?

And - double blessings - another brother appeared this morning at breakfast. Sean popped in from Louisville, fixed our refrigerator door, had a nice chat, and sailed off in a southerly direction.

Much is right with a world that has such goodness in it as the goodnesses of Jay and Sean.

Finally, a tech note. I've stumbled upon the Secret Code that allows one to vanquish those sometimes ugly lines beneath the links on one's web page. If you would like a copy of said code to wipe out yr own unsightly lines, just say the word.