Share My Pain

Ugh.

I just finished grading the mid-term exams for my 200 level class. It was fairly depressing, mostly because I get the impression that most of the students either A) don't care or B) don't know how to write a decent essay.

There were problems with plagiarism, with content, with structure and, oh good God, spell check. The following are all actual sentences (unedited of course) from some of the exams:

"During the last rodeo a cow trampled a young little girl and it brought the whole town in morning"

"hurricane Katrina in New orleans would not have an impact on Tucson, physically wise"

"Examples all over the world belief in many ways like Muslim belief in the morning sun while other belief in GOD" (no, I have no idea what this student is talking about)

"At every Monet we are being bombard with stimuli..." (but what happens at every Van Gogh?)

"The ideal form of argument is Login, Ethos and Pathos" (well, two out of three here)

"Ferraro leaving the clinton campaign and in Arizona the state orders KIDCO facility's closure" (huh?)
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According to various students in my class, the following words no longer need to be capitalized:
i
united states
english
consitution (the specific one we base our laws on)
mexican
china
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I do love teaching at a community college and I know I am not a grammar expert and that my relationship with spelling has been complicated in the past, but come on people.