Who doesn't like a good hamburger?
I put in my 2nd day at Oprah yesterday. I used a sick day for it, and so did two other teachers at my school. It was much better with them there because we could share the horrible essays and get a good laugh out of it together. There is still a huge number of essays left to be evaluated. They hope to be done by Monday, but I just don't see how they could be.
There were really no perks outside of the free food and parking. A few girls answered some Oprah trivia questions and won an Oprah "Make the Most of Your Life" hat. Another girl won a new robe and another a pair of Oprah's favorite jammies. I was glad I didn't know any of the answers. There are so many women obsessed with Oprah, and I just don't want to be one of those people. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a hearty dose of Ms. Winfrey every so often, but I wouldn't call myself a devoted fan. I'd call myself a curious bystander who wouldn't pass up an opportunity to be on her show on the off chance I might win something. I kept waiting for someone to say, "Okay everybody, look under your seat! Everybody wins a new ____________!"
Alas, there were no surprises under my seat. There were some surprises in those essays though. As I am a high school teacher, you might assume that I know a lot about teenagers. As it turns out, I know a lot about rich upper middle class white and Asian teenagers from a Western suburb about 40 miles West of Chicago. I apparently know nothing at all about anyone that doesn't fit that profile. Here's what I learned about teenagers while grading:
1. They are not, on the whole, very strong writers.
2. When they are strong writers, it's usually because they are good at writing an organized and coherent essay, not necessarily because they are eloquent or have a voice (which is hard to do, I realize).
3. They think that the holocaust was "a terrible thing" (Really? I hadn't thought of that).
4. But they also think high school bullies and cliques are equally as terrible.
5. The ones from the South, Michigan and Indiana are probably the weakest writers in the country (which is a gross generalization, I realize, but I couldn't help but notice a pattern).
6. NONE of them know how to correctly use a semi-colon.
Yes, there were quite a few really, really bad essays. One of my colleagues had several really amazing ones though, whereas I have maybe 2 good ones. One girl my colleague gave a 50 to was from Rwanda. Her parents where taken away and killed when she was a child. She now lives in a posh suburb of Chicago (don't ask me how she went from Rwanda to a suburb whose average home price is upwards of $1,000,000), goes to probably one of the best high schools in the country, and speaks at other high schools about the awful things she went through. *I nearly cried when I read it; it was that good. The bad ones were more fun to read. One kid actually started his essay by asking "Who doesn't like a good hamburger?" I don't know what came after that because I stopped reading for fear I might lose valuable IQ points just having read the work of a person that starts an essay about the relevance of the holocaust by asking a question about a popular American sandwich. Another kid used two words that none of my colleagues could identify. I think they were completely made up. All of the essays had the student application attached to it. The application included their home address and phone number and school phone and address. On more than one occasion I considered calling the number on the application:
Tara: Hi. Is this Ashley?
Ashley: Yes.
T: **Ashley from Washington High School in Mississippi?
A: Yes, that's me.
T: Ashley, I just got done reading the essay you submitted to the Oprah essay contest.
A: REALLY? Did I win? Am I going to get to meet Oprah? Am I coming to Chicago?
T: Oh no, Ashley. I am calling to ask you for that 2 minutes of my life back.
A: I'm sorry? I don't understand. So I'm not the winner?
T: No, Ashley, not unless Ms. Winfrey decides to give out an award for WORST ESSAY EVER, in which case you would be the winner- hands down.
A: Oh... um...
T: I would like to pass on some advice that I got straight from Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself:
A: Okay. What is it?
T: Give up now, Ashley. Just give up.
I don't mean to be harsh, but when you spend 8 hours reading essays that claim that the Holocaust is comparable to the Columbine school shootings, even to 9/11 (which were obviously tragic but I don't think any intelligent human being could seriously say that they were as devastating as the Holocaust), you just get a little bitter.
Well, the BF and I are celebrating Valentine's Day tonight. It's just an excuse to go to dinner. We are going to an Italian BYOB in Bucktown. I love a good BYOB.
PS: I think I can hear my neighbors getting it on right now. I feel kind of dirty.
* This is the correct way to use a semi-colon.
** Student's information has been changed to protect her anonymity.
There were really no perks outside of the free food and parking. A few girls answered some Oprah trivia questions and won an Oprah "Make the Most of Your Life" hat. Another girl won a new robe and another a pair of Oprah's favorite jammies. I was glad I didn't know any of the answers. There are so many women obsessed with Oprah, and I just don't want to be one of those people. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy a hearty dose of Ms. Winfrey every so often, but I wouldn't call myself a devoted fan. I'd call myself a curious bystander who wouldn't pass up an opportunity to be on her show on the off chance I might win something. I kept waiting for someone to say, "Okay everybody, look under your seat! Everybody wins a new ____________!"
Alas, there were no surprises under my seat. There were some surprises in those essays though. As I am a high school teacher, you might assume that I know a lot about teenagers. As it turns out, I know a lot about rich upper middle class white and Asian teenagers from a Western suburb about 40 miles West of Chicago. I apparently know nothing at all about anyone that doesn't fit that profile. Here's what I learned about teenagers while grading:
1. They are not, on the whole, very strong writers.
2. When they are strong writers, it's usually because they are good at writing an organized and coherent essay, not necessarily because they are eloquent or have a voice (which is hard to do, I realize).
3. They think that the holocaust was "a terrible thing" (Really? I hadn't thought of that).
4. But they also think high school bullies and cliques are equally as terrible.
5. The ones from the South, Michigan and Indiana are probably the weakest writers in the country (which is a gross generalization, I realize, but I couldn't help but notice a pattern).
6. NONE of them know how to correctly use a semi-colon.
Yes, there were quite a few really, really bad essays. One of my colleagues had several really amazing ones though, whereas I have maybe 2 good ones. One girl my colleague gave a 50 to was from Rwanda. Her parents where taken away and killed when she was a child. She now lives in a posh suburb of Chicago (don't ask me how she went from Rwanda to a suburb whose average home price is upwards of $1,000,000), goes to probably one of the best high schools in the country, and speaks at other high schools about the awful things she went through. *I nearly cried when I read it; it was that good. The bad ones were more fun to read. One kid actually started his essay by asking "Who doesn't like a good hamburger?" I don't know what came after that because I stopped reading for fear I might lose valuable IQ points just having read the work of a person that starts an essay about the relevance of the holocaust by asking a question about a popular American sandwich. Another kid used two words that none of my colleagues could identify. I think they were completely made up. All of the essays had the student application attached to it. The application included their home address and phone number and school phone and address. On more than one occasion I considered calling the number on the application:
Tara: Hi. Is this Ashley?
Ashley: Yes.
T: **Ashley from Washington High School in Mississippi?
A: Yes, that's me.
T: Ashley, I just got done reading the essay you submitted to the Oprah essay contest.
A: REALLY? Did I win? Am I going to get to meet Oprah? Am I coming to Chicago?
T: Oh no, Ashley. I am calling to ask you for that 2 minutes of my life back.
A: I'm sorry? I don't understand. So I'm not the winner?
T: No, Ashley, not unless Ms. Winfrey decides to give out an award for WORST ESSAY EVER, in which case you would be the winner- hands down.
A: Oh... um...
T: I would like to pass on some advice that I got straight from Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself:
A: Okay. What is it?
T: Give up now, Ashley. Just give up.
I don't mean to be harsh, but when you spend 8 hours reading essays that claim that the Holocaust is comparable to the Columbine school shootings, even to 9/11 (which were obviously tragic but I don't think any intelligent human being could seriously say that they were as devastating as the Holocaust), you just get a little bitter.
Well, the BF and I are celebrating Valentine's Day tonight. It's just an excuse to go to dinner. We are going to an Italian BYOB in Bucktown. I love a good BYOB.
PS: I think I can hear my neighbors getting it on right now. I feel kind of dirty.
* This is the correct way to use a semi-colon.
** Student's information has been changed to protect her anonymity.
posted by Sue Ellen Mischke at 3:25 PM
6 Comments:
You're a semi-colon snob? I'm a predicate nominative snob.
Did you get your check already, or do you have to go back for it, possibly while they are filming a show? (Still holding out for a new spa robe here.)
I think they'll send the check. Either that or I just donated my "learned" expertise. (Still holding out for Favorite Things Spring episode tickets here.)
I promise you; if I get a free spa robe, I'll send it to you. It's not looking good though.
How the hell could you stop reading after the "who doesn't like a good hamburger" intro? That is what we like to call an attention getter. It had MY attention like a motherfucker. I'm DYING to know how he tied that statement into the holocaust.
That attention getter reminds of one of Lewis Black's comedy routines when he says how sometimes you overhear something someone says, and you can't for the life of you think of what the hell it meant to the point where it plagues you and you wish you hadn't heard it. The statement was as follows: "If it weren't for my horse I wouldn't have spent that year in college"
I think I have Ashley in class;
Nice ; southie
"NONE of them know how to correctly use a semi-colon."
I'm a soon-to-be Stanford undergrad who does indeed know how to use a semi-colon. Although I enjoyed the book and had concocted a stellar essay, I quit when I discovered that it's just two stupid tickets to Oprah's show. And I don't even like Oprah. And I have other scholarships I need to apply to that actually give me money.
So I'll put out a thought. Are the essays these students wrote stupid simply because they're too stupid to have figured that the contest is a sham?
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