Oh boy!

I just found this sentence lurking in a student's film review (he uses it as a topic sentence for a paragraph devoted to theme) --

"The many episodes with Brody trying to explain to the mayor that the beach needs to be shut down is key for the fate of the many people who were blind to the situation of a killer shark being in the waters of Amity." What is he trying to say?

Actually, this kind of writing reminds me of how I used to write in college. I was so focues on impressing my professors and imitating the type of writing I was reading (icky literary criticism and historical texts) that I ended up writing pure drivvle. How can I get this student to find his voice? How did I find mine?

On a better note, one of my other College Comp students had to write a make up essay (if students miss more than three days in a quarter - or six in a semester - they have to write an essay for me for each day they miss) in which she wrote 111 things about herself. It was glorious. I can't even begin to explain how much I enjoyed reading it. So I stole her idea and assigned it to my sophomore composition students for homework over Thanksgiving. As expected, only a handful turned them in, but are they worth it!