Lucy in the sky...

I've had to mark 80 essays since last Wednesday, annotating them in detail to show all the numerous errors in punctuation, spelling and expression so that the students can redraft them. My brain is somewhat frazzled.

I'm not alone in this, mind you. Below is what one student produced in the two-hour slot available to write this piece. He knew he was going to have to write the essay, knew the criteria and was supposed to have thought about it. It's not exactly a long essay, is it? But it does have a certain individual - um - tone.

Our streets are flooded with drugs, we are told. If this is true then society basks on the riverbanks of self-righteousness and misinformation scares those who would benefit from taking a swim. It seems so long ago that my veil was lifted and I married “the high” and began exploring a galaxy of experiences that society would rather I never had the opportunity to have. The majority of my relationship has been forced full of wonderful feelings and paradigm shifting relationships, love, laughter and happiness. But every relationship has its downs. Mine was the day I stumbled across MDPV.

Fairly conclusive proof, I feel, that mind-altering substances do indeed stir the neurons about a bit. Interestingly, maybe. But not necessarily in a way conducive to academic endeavour.

How Michael feels about sport

Write a reflective essay, I said to my class of not-very-academic 16-year-0lds, about something you're interested in. I want to feel your enthusiasm. Your personality should shine through. Try to make the reader see the fascination too. So if you're keen on sport, for instance..... [etc etc]

This is what I got.


How I feel about sport

When I was young, I loved playing football and watching it. My favourite football team was Manchester United. Whenever I watched them play I got really happy. I used to play football with my friends too. I wasn’t that good though.

I was a goalkeeper most times although I’ve been a defender, midfielder and striker. I was really rubbish as a midfielder. I let in goals when I was a goalkeeper. I really wanted to improve my goalkeeping because people got angry if I let a goal in. I did improve but I was still not good.

I hated midfielding because I didn’t have any skills and I wasn’t a fast runner. The ball always got taken off me. I wanted to improve my midfielding as well but couldn’t because I was just rubbish at it. I actually couldn’t stand being a midfielder.

Being a striker was a bit easier. I scored some goals. Defending was fine for me as well. I did really good defending. It was just that sometimes I didn’t do good defending if I had to play against really good footballers. I hated that but still tried and tried.

Whenever I got tired, I didn’t really make an effort, though. If I did, it wasn’t much of an effort. I would just stand back as a defender or a goalkeeper. I got really tired running. Sometimes I did work really hard to play good football but I was probably the worst in my team.

I’ve stopped playing because I can’t be bothered any more. I didn’t play for three months and then I played for a week and then that was it. I haven’t played since then. It’s now been nine months since I played. I don’t want to play it any more because I was simply rubbish and I can’t play football anyway. I hate it now. I just like watching it on tv but I don’t watch it that much now anyway because I get bored. Cricket is much better than football, watching it and playing it, because I’m better at it.

I hate playing tennis and volleyball because I’m rubbish at them. I quite like basketball. It’s an all right sport to play. I hated hockey really really much. I couldn’t play hockey at all. I was really bad at it. I only played hockey three times in my life. I never played after that because I couldn’t play it. I never played tennis because I didn’t want to play it. I just didn’t like table tennis. I thought it was boring. Snooker was fine but I was really bad at it. And I was scared playing rugby.

Yup, makes you want to get out there and play, doesn't it?

(Mind you, that's how I feel about most sports too.)

No, no! Not for cats!