creative spelling and faulty thinking

New semester brings a new batch of terrible/interesting writing. These are all excerpts from the journals I have my students write in daily.

My prompt: What would your impression of the "New World" have been if you had been a pilgrim?

Their responses:

My impression on the new world if I was a pilgrim would be. "Umm cool. I wonder if there is girls here? If not, I wanna go home."

So, he would have been interested only in the female natives that, as a Puritan, he would have believed were going to hell. Also, some day I will have students that know how to use the conditional subjunctive...that day has not yet arrived. Oh, I wish I were a teacher of students with some actual mental ability...

If I was a pilgrum I would have thought it would been very boring and hard to survive. It would been very boring because I would have been used to european life style. It would have also been hard to survive because they did not have to hunt for food back in england.

Right. Because in England at that time, any game that people wanted to eat would obligingly walk into the house of its own accord. Damn animals in the Americas made you actually go out and hunt them. Also: I find it interesting that this student only sometimes remembered to include the "have" in his sentences...

Another prompt: Why did the Native Americans tell myths, and what was their purpose?

These responses feature some creative spelling...

Because that what there spirt told them to believe in. The spirts sat around telling myths and stories around the camp fire They also have their special dances. So there children know about the myths and knowing there heritage. Knowing there herritage is a big thing in the children.

Not sure why she spelled heritage correctly the first time, and not the second, nor why she can sometimes spell "heritage" but doesn't know which "there" to use, or how to spell "spirit."

This next response is to the same prompt, but I really am not sure what she's getting at. At least the first one I can understand what she meant, but this other girl...well, decide for yourself:

To tell how events happenen. They did it to the people how something happend, and for interatanment.

I think the last word is "entertainment," perhaps. This child just doesn't have a whole lot of brain power, I'm afraid, though she generally tries hard. In response to the prompt that said, "You are a Puritan. What do you do for fun? What kind of books do you read? What is your goal in life?" she answered rather simply. "I was a puritan. I would play outside." Apparently she was able to place herself in the past, but then failed completely to understand the fact that they would not been fans of letting anyone "play outside," as a 16 year old woman. This after we spent a good deal of time discussing these facts. Then again, this is the same student that sat there, practically staring at me while I explained a grammar exercise, and not 5 seconds after I finished explaining the directions, called me over and asked what she was supposed to be doing.

Oh well. At least some of my students this semester seem to have almost the appropriate number of functioning brain cells to still maintain coherence.