August 12, 2010

Facebook is Like Mustard and Other Reasons I’m Not Ready for Fall Semester

I need to get my syllabus ready for the fall semester and I haven't done it yet. Procrastination becomes me. Here's the thing though. I have good reason for procrastinating and being a little bit scared of what's to come this semester.

Each summer, I spend several days during freshman orientation, reading abysmal essays that make me want to laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously. The good ones are few and far between. It's amazing how clueless students can be without an open word doc in front of them. Some of them have such horrible handwriting that it's not even possible to give the essay an accurate read. But I always leave each reading session with a list of "greatest hits" and I'd like to share some of them with you.

This year, students were asked to respond to one of three questions. One asked students to discuss Facebook and whether or not they feel Facebook needs a new code of conduct. Another question inquired about how students think the oil spill should be dealt with and handled by corporations. The last question asked students to discuss standardized testing and whether or not they feel tests are good representations of intelligence.

As I'm sure you can guess, most of our essays were about Facebook. We actually got to the point, during our third session, where we divided up the essays and tortured ourselves with the Facebook ones first. They lacked critical thinking; in fact, most lacked any and all semblance of thinking. Here are some of the "best of" examples:

Best use of two words that are not the actual words intended: "I was up hauled that Facebook didn't have a better code of conduct." Um-hmm, that would be appalled.

Best use of a misspelled rock: "Don't take anything for granit."

Best example of logical thinking: "One of the biggest dangers of online activity is that you might encounter some "unfriendly stalkers." Yeah, you don't really need to worry about the friendly stalkers, just those pesky unfriendly ones.

Best use of food to get point across: "I donut know how I feel about this issue." Someone was hungry.

Best invention of new time period: "I can't stand it when people act like a pre-Madonna." Hey, at least this student knew to capitalize Madonna. And for all of you who were not certain before, we have BC, AD and now PM (pre-Madonna) time periods.

Most startling revelation:"If Facebook were banned, people would have no way to connect with friends." True enough, because we don't have anything like phones or mailboxes where people could connect. And interaction in person? Nah, that wouldn't work.

Best first sentence: "To begin with, I am choosing essay number 3." The essays were lettered.

Best use of patriotism: "The attacks on 9/11 couldn't break our seals. Us Americans came together." Yep, our seals are patriotic animal folk. They rose above and helped "us Americans" by clapping those silly little flippers and barking us right back to normal.

Best person to write a new code of conduct for Facebook: "Facebook should make you don't write no threats." For real people.

Best way to get put in remedial English: Write a killer good essay and then on the front of your booklet, fill in where it says "subject" with the word: "writting."

Best invention of new words: nototion and vestate. Huh?

Best phonetic spelling (or something): suppost (supposed), sorce (source), awial (awhile), and pedafiles (pedophiles), precousious (precautious), oppurinity (opportunity). There were just too many awesome examples to choose only one.

Best combination of words: "everywhichway"

Best new inventive use for a word: "Facebook allows you to meet new people to a certain decent."

I have to say though, that my favorite essay of the entire summer, took a giant risk by comparing Facebook to mustard. Anyone want to guess how those two are alike? Go for it. Think like an incoming freshman and knock my socks off.