I 

have this theory that most people have had an 
eccentric English teacher. The theory developed 
once after I was telling a friend about my own 

unconventional English teacher from high school, and 
she admitted she had had one, too. Because I’m the 
only person from my class at the University of Michi-
gan, I feel pretty comfortable writing about Ruth. 
More specifically, I have no problem revealing that she 
was most likely the most bizarre teacher I’ve ever had. 
But that was a lot of her appeal to me.

During the summer between 10th and 11th grade, I 

received an envelope with a few sheets of paper, each 
detailing a specific assignment. One was to come up 
with a list of vocabulary words I didn’t know in each of 
the assigned summer readings, define them and write 
sentences with them. Another was to write a different 
style of essay on each book. The last was to take a list 
of commonly misused words and use them correctly. 
That was the beginning of Ruth.

The first day of class, I encountered an old woman 

wearing a denim dress, with her hair in a chignon. 
This pattern — denim dress, often with seasonal 
embroidery, but not always, and chignon — would 
continue for every single day of the school year. But 
this sweet-looking woman immediately had everyone 
in the class draw an oval in highlighter and outline it 
in red pen onto a notecard. Those would become our 
“yellow egg” cards, and we had to correct any mis-
takes we made with our commonly misused words on 
them all year. Other Ruth highlights include playing 
loon calls in class when we read Thoreau, passing an 
eyelash curler around the class to demonstrate what it 
was and memorizing the AP scores of all her previous 
students.

This is all said endearingly, because I honestly 

believe Ruth is the reason I’m an English major and 
copy editor now. I know the differences between your 
and you’re; they’re, there and their; who and whom 
and, at least mostly, lay, lie and lie. I don’t want to brag, 
but I never had to use my “yellow egg” card. The beau-
ty of the ridiculous English teacher (or any teacher, 
really) is that you remember them and, peripherally, 
some of what they taught you. I remember the loon 
calls, and I remember Thoreau. I remember Ruth’s 

love of Robert Redford and the shirt scene in the 1974 
“Great Gatsby” and I remember the green light. Every 
time I write an essay, I remember the time she imme-
diately handed an essay back to one of my peers when 
he turned it in because it wasn’t in Times New Roman, 
so I always use Times New Roman even when it’s not 
required.

When I first told someone about Ruth, he laughed at 

me and told me she sounded crazy. But when I started 
asking around, I learned that I’m not alone. Almost all 
of my housemates and fellow copy editors have sto-
ries about their own Ruths, including an interesting 
tale about a crow named Walter. That we all remem-
ber these peculiar moments and teachers, years after 
we had them, says a lot to me. Even the teachers you 
might complain about and think are unreasonable now 
are teaching you something, and you’ll probably end 
up telling your kids about them when they complain 
about their teachers. At the very least, you have a will-
ing listener in me. I’m always looking for more Ruth 
stories.

2B

Magazine Editor:

Karl Williams

Deputy Editor:

Nabeel Chollampat

Design Editor:

Shane Achenbach

Photo Editor:

Zoey Holmstrom

Creative Director:

Emilie Farrugia

Editor in Chief:

Shoham Geva

Managing Editor:

Laura Schinagle

Copy Editors:

Emily Campbell

Alexis Nowicki

Jose Rosales

the statement

Wednesday, March 30, 2016 / The Statement

Copy That: Everyone’s English Teacher

B Y D A N I E L L E J A C K S O N

the
tangent

T H O U G H T B U B B L E : SEL F - D R IVI N G C AR S

“I feel like the idea of self driving cars has 

recently become more of a reality. They hold a 

lot of potential, and it would be cool if we as a 

university could contribute to the revolution.

– Engineering freshman Jovana Paripovic

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA

ZOEY HOLMSTROM/DAILY

ILLUSTRATION BY EMILIE FARRUGIA

