Sunday, February 1, 2009

While we're telling school stories...

I'm reading through student responses to prompts about Obama. The goal was to write an organized paragraph and blah blah blah. Not important to you. What IS important to you is how precious these English Language Learners are.

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Prompt: Barack Obama's father is an African and his mother is a White American. How do you think Obama's unique background will affect how he leads the United States?

Well, I don't know if it will affect how he's doing his job as a president, cause colour doesn't matter, right? And if the american people worries about rasism and stuff, I think they could take it all easy. A president should not dudge people in order of wich colour they are, not even if he og her is the oposite.
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Yes, "dudge." And "og." "Og" means "and" in Norwegian.

Also, how smart is this kid:
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Prompt: Barack Obama has claimed to want to remove American troops from Iraq within the next few years. Will this help or harm Iraqi citizens? Why?

Obama has stated that he wants to remove or decrease the amount of US troops currently stationed in Iraq. This question leads to dividing people in two groups: the ones who support the removal, claiming that this will decrease terrorism and hep the Iraqi people establish a functional government, the other ones claim that the removal of the troops will increase the number of terrorists and that there will be chaos. Personally, I don't know, but I slightly support the ones claiming that the soldiers should stay, to prevent chaos and a coup de tat.
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Oh, yes. I could totally write something that sophisticated in a foreign language. Especially when I was 16. No problem.


And finally, this gem:
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Prompt: Many say that Barack Obama was the first president (and presidential candidate) to use the internet as a powerful tool in a campaign. How did Obama's use of the internet help him win the presidential election?

During the campaign Obama used the internet as a tool to attract voters. Many people say he's the first president to take advantage of the world wide web. It wasn't always serious "commercials" for the campaign,"Obama Girl" collected a couple of thousand voters by showing a picture of Obama's bare chest, and herself in a bikini singing "I've got a crush on Obama." Yes we can, a collection of well known American celebrities made Obama's speech into a song with hundreds of thousands of views at Youtube. So yes we can. Yes we can use the internet. So can Obama.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ha ha! I love those. I wish I could solicit good Obama conversation with my kids. Mine still identify every black man as being Barack Obama, even one girls grandpa who came in set off a kindergarten uproar of "Obama!"

Nicole Kristine said...

Favorite parts:

1) take it easy
2) coup de tat
3) Yes we can use the internet.