Pronoun Charts and Bus Rides
In my freshman year at Columbia City High School, I encountered a man who had a lasting effect on the rest of my high school career, and indeed to this day. I often thought of him as one of the toughest teachers I ever had, but also as one of the best.
Mr. Robert Brittain teaches freshman English. He’s a large man, balding, and rather jolly. But beneath this genial exterior lays a fiendish old English teacher who delights in “preparing” his students for the rest of their educations. This grizzled beast loves to keep his students on their toes at all times, dangling the prospect of a good grade in front of them like a fisherman dangles a worm on a hook.
One of his most diabolical devices is the Pronoun Chart: a table of all the pronouns in all their forms. Students are expected to memorize this chart and regurgitate it onto every test and quiz he gives. Woe to the student who fails to see the relationship between “Romeo and Juliet” and modern English pronouns, for he will be caught unprepared on the final Shakespeare test. Woe to the student who cannot remember the possessive form of the word “you,” for she will receive a lower grade.
Another instrument of torture employed by this maniac is the so-called “college-based grading scale.” Designed to prepare students for the rigors of college grades, this scale marks the difference between an A and a B by only four points.