Bat Dad

We listened to some music during peer review sessions today. The music was from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. One student told me about Bat Dad on YouTube. I thought it was funny, so I'm posting it here.

Taylor Mali -- "The The Impotence of Proofreading"

Watched this in class to get students in "the mood" for peer reviewing each other's papers:

Brainstorming

Notes from one of our famous brainstorming sessions.

"Everything That Rises Must Converge," Part 2

I sometimes make students write a "sequel" or an ending to a story. They did it in groups, but I wrote a couple of my own to Flannery O'Connor's classic, "Everything That Rises Must Converge." Here they are:

 

The first one:

Regretting the way he chastises his mother, Julian charges back towards the bus stop, his mom suffering on the ground. As the bus approaches, a moment before the stop, Julian jumps in front. The bus screeches to a halt after the intense impact.

Julian’s mother regains her senses after her momentary disorientation. She remembers getting hit with the purse, but she isn’t sure how she ended up lying on the ground.

“Julian?” she calls out. “Julian, where are you?” She gets up and walks back towards the bus stop, searching. She continues to call his name.

She sees the blood on the road first, then on the front of the bus. She sees legs poking out from under the bus, but she doesn’t recognize them at first. “What happened here?” she asks anyone who’s listening.

The bus driver, a black man, waits outside the bus, pushing people back as they crowd in around the legs and the bus. “Ma’am. Stay back, ma’am. There’s been an accident.”

Julian’s mother then recognizes Julian’s pants. All at once, she cries out, “My boy! My sweet Julian!”

“You know him?” the bus driver says. “He just come out of nowhere, ma’am. I didn’t mean to. It was almost like he done it on purpose.”

The bus driver wraps his arm around Julian’s mother. She breaks down and cries into the man’s chest. As she wraps her arms around him, squeezing as if he were her son, darkness seems to arrive instantly as Julian’s mother enters the world of guilt and sorrow.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second one:

Julian’s guilt and sorrow began to overtake him when he couldn’t find anyone to help. He ran to his mother and squeezed her tightly, with little control of his bodily motions. His hand pushed in on the soft spot behind his ear and something began to happen.

Julian’s mother’s mouth opened wider than should’ve been possible. Julian could see inside his mother and the color of metal caught his eye. She was a robot. Her mouth opened wider, revealing small, white being. It had a head too large for its body and was, in total, the size of a small kitten. It was controlling Julian’s robot mother, and it had been for some time.

Julian wanted to yell for help, but he was too surprised to speak. He opened his mouth and nothing came out. The being jumped from the controls and kicked Julian in the face. Julian fell to his back and the being quickly pulled out a small, metal device that paralyzed Julian.

“You stupid humans,” the being said. “We’ve been fooling you for years.”

“Ughhhghghghgh!” Julian said.

“You can’t speak. I’ve paralyzed everything but your brain so I can conveniently explain what’s been happening before you die. You see, I’m from a planet called Whiteness. Not only did we take over many of the white people on your planet centuries ago, but we also engrained racism into your world’s culture. We almost won with Hitler. But then it all fell apart. You Americans are stubborn, but we’ve succeeded so well that you can’t even be a good non-racist. Julian, you just want to use black people to be mean to your mother. Stupid humans. Lately, we’ve used social networks to make a comeback. We’re taking over!!! Long live Whiteness!!! Ha ha ha ha!!!”

With that, The little, white being stuck his small arm up Julian’s nose and pulled out his brain. He got back in Julian’s mother and closed the door. She stood and walked away as if nothing happened.

Alan Parsons Project -- The Cask of Amontillado

Grading Contracts: A Link

Some people who read this know that I also blog for The Chronicle of Higher Education. I wrote, there, about trying a grading contract. Here's the link: http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/a-grading-contract/39433

I thought some of the comments on that post were interesting and some students and other professors might want to see what was said.