So I assigned my frosh an ungraded diagnostic essay on the first day, and most of them were at least decent. One of the prompts was "Describe a time when there were negative consequences to telling the truth." (And oh how many "I should never have told him/ her that I cheated/ she looked fat responses I got.)
But this one guy wrote an essay about he hung was part of this awesome jock click in high school (they wore matching jackets) and there was another guy who wasn't as cool but was almost cool, so they decided to haze him for a week. As in, telling everyone they knew what a tool he was, as loudly as possible, and putting rotten meat in this guy's sandwich and making his friends be quiet about it.
The point of the article was that our protagonist should not have been pressured into telling the truth by the evil principle because she already knew that he and his friends had done it, and how he felt used by her.
So now I'm going to spend a semester trying not to hate this guy.
This is the kind of kid that I hated in highschool. I think you're justified in smudging the lines a little bit with him. If his paper is B worthy, give him a C+. Maybe it'll teach him to not be a crappy human being.
ReplyDeleteIs he sure that his gang didn't accidentally wander away from a production of West Side Story? Seriously, matching jackets?
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to picture them oppressing the uncool kid with the power of years of ballet and modern dance.