It's very common for students to assume that English teachers are evil, and that's because they have a hard time understanding what they're saying. And most of the time, it feels like they're speaking another language, what with Shakespeare and Lochinvar.

So I have one student named Tally, whom I've been helping for the past month. Recently, she's been panicking over an analytical essay she has to do for English. After interpreting her English teacher's instructions (interpreting = speaking teenager), she thanked me a million times for making her essay sound good. In reality, all I did was fix her sentence structure.

Here are some things English teachers say that confuse students:

What are you proving?
Translation: Come up with something original and entertain me.  

Your thesis is a summary. Change it!
Translation: I've read the story, I don't need you to summarize it. Spare me the headache. 

Get to the point, don't use fluffy words!
Translation: Don't repeat phrases like "as a matter of fact", "that it is", and "which is proven" will make your essay longer. 

Don't retell, analyze! 

Translation: I'm going to have to read something intellectual after reading your essay to save my brain from melting.

The truth is, English teachers are bored. Not evil.

But also, I've noticed that one of the things that scares students the most is not the evil-nature of their teachers, but rather that blank page or a page with jumbled up words that don't mean what they think.

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead. 
-Gene Fowler