The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.0076  Thursday, 13 January 2000.

[1]     From:   Joe Conlon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 13 Jan 2000 00:30:43 -0500
        Subj:   Re: Goofy Test Answers

[2]     From:   John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Thursday, 13 Jan 2000 02:48:05 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.0067 Goofy Answer


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Joe Conlon <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 13 Jan 2000 00:30:43 -0500
Subject:        Re: Goofy Test Answers

A number of years ago I was teaching a public high school elective
Shakespeare course.  We had spent 2 weeks reading and discussing Hamlet
and had seen a video.  Things had been going well (I thought) and the
students seemed to really get into the play.  The discussions were good
and we acted out several scenes.  However, when the time for the essay
test came, one student gave me quite a surprise.

A question they were to answer in a well-developed essay was:  "In the
early part of the story we hear 'There is something rotten in the state
of Denmark.'  How does the rest of the play either prove or disprove
this statement?"

The following is the answer I received from one student (Name withheld
to protect the ignorant).

"Well when they heard cotten in the state of Denmark they pack up all
there clothes and every thing that they owned and got on a ship to go to
Denmark.  They loaded up three ships all together, but on there journey
they had some trouble first they ran in to a hurricane on there way.  It
was such a tragic momen cause that knocked out 2 of the 3 ships the ones
who survived kept on going they were determined to make it.  But only
when they were about 3 days away-the food got poisened and they all got
very sick and started diying one by one.  On the second day they only
had about 100 people left on the lost day they could see land but died
before they got there it was a sad day for everybody.  When the people
found out what had happend they were crushed.

Two months later they had built a new fleet of ships and tried heeding
back to the U.S. again hopefully succeeding .  In April 1669 the brand
new ships took off all 6 of them with about 220 people on each ship.
They saild the ocean for another two in a half months.  They had 8 more
weeks to go.  Unfortuelly about 2 1/2 ships were gone people were dieing
of natural causes and 2 of the ships got food poisening again.  Only One
ship made it there whith only 200 people.  After they stayed for awhile
half stayed and half went back home to either stay or come back with
more people."

I'll bet you people didn't know that about Hamlet !!!  Where he got
these ideas is beyond me.  He seems to have mixed in a bit of the lost
Roanoke colony, the voyage of Christopher Columbus, and God only knows
what else into his answer.

BTW  most of the other papers were quite good.

Joe Conlon
Warsaw , Indiana

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           John Ramsay <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Thursday, 13 Jan 2000 02:48:05 -0500
Subject: 11.0067 Goofy Answer
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.0067 Goofy Answer

My wife attended an evening class at university as a mature student. The
instructor brought in one of the deans as a guest lecturer and
introduced him as Dean ____ using only his last name.

After the lecture she heard students, not 1st year ones either, saying,
'Dean said this,' and, 'Dean said that', blissfully oblivious of the
fact that his first name was not Dean.

John Ramsay
Welland Ontario

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