"Let's take a clss trip to hell."

Yes. That was a quote of mine from class.

In College Comp II we are working on a definition essay. I want them to take abstract terms and put their personal definitions to them. Last week we examined beauty. This week we are looking at evil; thus we read this Time article on evil. I read it way back in high school, and it has always stuck with me.

As we were discussing the article, we began to work our way around the concept of evil (and good). The article raises an interesting idea - how do we 'rate' or 'grade' evil?

To imagine this concept I asked students to think of who might be first in line in hell.

Hitler? Stalin? Brutus and Cassius (they occupy - if I remember correctly - the innermost regions of Dante's Inferno)? Cain? Eve?

To illustrate this concept, I asked students to imagine that we are taking a class trip to hell.

It got a few chuckles and made for some interesting imagery. I didn't know, though, that it would wind up as someone's status on facebook!