Wednesday

I was so busy yesterday, I never got a chance to blog. Though I did discover some new features that the blogger has. You’ll notice on the right hand bar, two new features. One is a video link. I listed three of my favorite categories: cats, the Bengals, fatherhood, and Star Wars Legos. So you’ll see some videos on each category.

The fatherhood videos are interesting. One is devoted to “Team Hoyt.” It tells the story of a father, Dick Hoyt, who I believe is an ex-marine and without a doubt a world class father. His son, Rick, suffered from severe brain damage when the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and cut off his oxygen supply. Every weekend they compete either in marathons or triathlons. Dick pushes, pulls, and guides his son in specially built devices. It’s an incredible story.

The second set of videos is devoted to Dads on the opposite end of the spectrum. I believe the first few videos are devoted to the wrestling dad who was so angry at an illegal move being used on his son during a match that he felt compelled to rush the mat and toss the other boy, whose father was videotaping the match, several feet into the air and then scream obscenities at the camera. Unfortunately, these types of Dads are becoming the standard.

The other videos are devoted to a growing passion of mine: Star Wars Legos. I guess it’s a way of recapturing my childhood, but since I’ve started putting them together, I’ve become addicted. Koko and I are eyeing the vintage Sand Crawler vehicle as our next purchase.


The other new feature is a news link farther down on the right side.

*****

This morning I was reading a batch of Brit Lit papers. The prompt called for them to define a hero. The opening of one paper in particular stood out to me --

“A hero is not so much someone who can save your life, but someone who can change it.” Now that had me interested immediately. I had the student in Comp I, and she knocked me out.

However, the opening of the next paper, unfortunately, stood out to me too --

“In this essay I will be talking about the different things that turn people into heroes. It will talk about the different traits a hero must have. What weakness some of them will possess, and some of the specific details of what they did.” Now I had this student in Comp I too, but where did he learn to write an intro like that? Sure as hell not from me. That’s a damn thesis if I’ve ever seen one. That has no place in my room (well, maybe in one or two themes). After I read that intro, I had a sinking feeling. Kind of like once when I was in the middle of eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes and realized it tasted a bit funky. Then I scanned the milk cartoon. I had that same sinking feeling as I read the expiration date as I did when I read the second paragraph of this paper. Sure enough, it was one of three generic supporting sentence followed by a canned conclusion that neatly regurgitated the original thesis. Ugh. So I crossed the intro and conclusion out and wrote, “Where did you learn this? Not from me I hope? That writing has no place in my room. Just tell me how you PERSONALLY define a hero. That’s what’s interesting to me.”

So how can two of my own Comp I kids come away with such drastic forms of writing? I have to think about that one for awhile.