Worst writing assignment ever.

While at work I saw this little "gem" on the whiteboard:

The sad thing is, I REMEMBER THAT WORLD. I know what it's like to be without either.

Goddamned teachers, I'm only 27 I'm not supposed to feel that old yet!

My 7th grade English class was given a writing assignment with a different topic given to everyone, but all the available topics were anti-technology in some form; examples included "computer addiction" and "violence in video games". I shouldn't have been very surprised, though, given that it was the nearly 80-year-old teacher's first year of teaching after she was an elementary school librarian for most of her life.

It's funny because you're old!

"Violence in video games is good, because it desensitizes children to brutality and viewing humans as objects. These lessons are much more useful than knowing when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock."

One of my first was trying to examine how I've used logical fallacies - problem is, before then I'd not done much debating, and couldn't remember what I'd said.

So, I had to write a false argument with a gentleman I referred to as 'Davos', and use as many as I could along the way.

To say it was painful would be an understatement - I spent about three times as much making that argument as I did writing about the fallacies.

Why the hell would you do this at work?

Unless you work at a school and the assignment was for the students.

You're 27? No, you do not remember that world, not unless your parents were very strict/cheap and you had zero friends. Computers and video games were very present in everyday life by the time you were born in circa 1986.

I can share your feelings to an extent. I don't think I recall anyone I knew owning a video game console until freakin' 1998 in my neighborhood, and that kid was almost immediately promoted to local demi-god status for a while.

edited 16th Sep '13 4:14:40 AM by carbon-mantis

oh boy, this isn't a worse one, but well...

"Write a mystery story that takes place in downtown Colorado Springs."

what ended up was something straight out of Pulp Fiction.

The hell I don't! I never had a computer of any kind until I was 10. (Even then it was used not often.) Video games were a rarity especially when growing up in a small town where the outside is a lot more interesting.

You know nothing of what I remember.

Probably for the better given there isn't much of anything you'd call "downtown" in Colorado Springs. The place is very decentralized.

Okay, maybe I phrased that in too presumptuous of a way, but your individual experience does not speak for the world as a whole in that era.

Though I suppose if we wanna get technical, the world as a whole still doesn't have that. The First World as a whole, I guess?

edited 16th Sep '13 10:52:44 PM by 0dd1

I'm only slightly older than Tom, and yet I remember first time really playing computer/video games was when I was about 5 (that was the red-white Nintendo btw). First saw a computer at around same time (Pentium 286 from memory). Computers may have been available for a while by then, but thing is people tend to be distrusting of new things and lag behind a bit. Hell, I grew up being taught that arcade game centres are full of gangsters and drug addicts and was forbidden to go to one when young, and that's the common attitude in Hong Kong back then and it's one of the places where new tech picks up rather quickly.

Also, I think when Tom spoke of "the world" I think he meant "the world he experienced" as opposed to the whole world. No one experiences everything in the world at any time so talking about "the world in general" is mute.

You can't just say that you would watch an assload of TV?

^^ 3000 channels and there's nothing but crap on? Seriously, I barely watch TV anymore because there's more and more channels but less and less good stuff worth watching at any given time.

One of the worst writing assignments I ever had was for a Radio/Television class. The whole class was tasked with making a script for a local adaptation of The War Of The Worlds, since it was the anniversary of the broadcast in the 30's that lead to mass panic. We were all separated, and then told to write sections of the script. I think the idea was to make it sound like an anthology.

Instead, it came out sounding as schizophrenic as you might imagine. It did not help that one egotistical ass in the class tried to basically sabotage the whole thing because he saw the event as "beneath" him. The alien was first discovered in four "acts" one after the other, the military attacked it, everyone had a wild dance party and then went off to fight the Martians on Mars. Mood Whiplash in the extreme. The best part of it all was that it was then put on local school air. I wisely kept my radio off that day, didn't hear good things about it afterwards.

I once had a TV-related assignment, with multiple subjects to choose from. No surprise, most of them were anti-television. I remember the one I did:

edited 19th Sep '13 2:12:51 PM by PhantomDusclops92

I can still remember a bad one I was given once. Not by a teacher, but by a computer game (an ocean-themed edutainment game; I don't remember the name, but you could use scenery and pictures to make your own stories). One of the story ideas it gave me went like this: "Try writing a story where you go scuba diving, but you can't find your way back to the boat! "

Ah, good old-fashioned Nightmare Fuel.

edited 19th Sep '13 2:21:45 PM by Demetrios

I had a writing assignment where I was supposed to write about one of my former interests as a child.

Now, it was quite easy to write it out, but what stumped me is that I needed six sources that I had to use for my paper. Half was from the interwebs, half was from the library.

Why am I putting this here? There wasn't a library in my area. Also, I'm not sure if there is history books for cartoons, and it'd be hard enough to get one. It's what made me have a B- for the rest of the year...

As I wade eternally over the depths of the ocean, I wait, cold and alone, to die...

edited 19th Sep '13 4:26:02 PM by ohsointocats

I rose up from the water weary but satisfied but to my amazement I could not see the boat. "Where'd the boat go?" I asked out loud. But I could not see it in any direction. So as I floated wondering what to do an idea burst forth into my head. "I'm gonna break the world record in endurance swimming! I'll hit land eventually!" So I did one last turn to see the boat and failed once again but I picked the direction of the setting sun and in a flash I took off swimming and wouldn't ever be stopped. Did I ever find a boat? Did I ever reach land? I'm not sure myself, so you'll have to decide.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:25:18 PM by MajorTom