...working with dangling modifiers

Dangling and misplaced modifers can be a really funny grammar topic to cover, because of the inherent humor of confusion. For those of you who don't know what I mean by dangling and misplaced modifiers, allow me to give you an example:

Sam screamed at the barking dog in his underwear.

The phrase "in his underwear" is the misplaced modifier here. Is Sam wearing underwear? Is the dog wearing Sam's underwear? Is the dog inside Sam's underwear AS Sam's wearing it? It's hilarious. You can have some real fun drawing misplaced and dangling modifiers in class to understand just how they can be misunderstood. "I saw the beautiful couch peeking through the window." Who's peeking? The couch? These sentences need to be rewritten to clarify their meanings.

We covered this this quarter in my class. It appeared on the exam my students took yesterday. Sam and his dog even appeared. Some kids figured out how to fix it: "Sam, in his underwear, screamed at the barking dog." Some kids just haven't gotten this concept yet: " Sam the barking dog in his underwear screamed." Some kids have been clueless all year, in more ways than just this: "San scraned at the dog en his undewer." (I teach 11th graders, remember.) One girl fixed it, made the meaning clear, but it wasn't the meaning I was expecting:

"Sam screamed because he has a barking dog in his underwear."

Full marks.

Edit: Another gem: the sentence to be corrected read, "William nearly earned 1000 lempiras when he sold his paintings." "Nearly earned" indicates that he came close to earning money, but he did not earn money. "Earned nearly" means he earned perhaps 990 lempiras, and is the correction I was looking for. This bright girl REALLY switched things up, but unfortunately didn't make the necessary correction:

"When William sold his pants, he nearly earned 100 lempiras."