some of you may be familiar with this beast known as "regents week" in New York. the regents is the statewide standardized testing that is conducted in high schools in all subject areas. to graduate high school out here with a regents diploma, you need to pass a minimum of 5 content area tests. one of those is the global history regents, which students take after completing my course.
those of you who have worked with/lived with me may have heard snippets of priceless essays written on various global regents tests. students are required to write a thematic essay, which is a response to a broad question (i.e.: Discuss 2 leaders who have had an impact on a region. Explain one action they took and one specific way that their action impacted the region). sounds simple right?
well, lucky for those of us who must read the regents essays, some students spice things up with their own variations of history. there are two topics that kids in the city learn about ceaselessly in history: apartheid and the holocaust. the key reason for this emphasis is that both of these topics are virtual goldmines of regents essay topic info. almost any regents essay question can be answered using a spin on one of these two events. no joke. and, in commemoration of the end of the 2007-08 school year, and the winding down of regents week, i bring you the top 5 regents commentaries of my brief teaching career (at least the ones i can legitimately remember, including original spelling errors):
#5: Nelson Mandela. "Women's suffrage was helped by nelson mandela in the 1930s when women and blacks weren't allowed to vote." man! i ALWAYS forget to thank nelson mandela when i cast my vote. also, the 1930s? come on.
#4-2: The Holocaust. seriously. if i teach for 10 more years, i could have the most amazing book filled with fabulous quotes. and you know you would buy it.
#4: great way to start a serious sentence: "Aldolph Hitler, also known as just Hitler..."
#3: "There was a successful man. His followers became known as the Jews."
#2: "During the holacaust [sidenote: clearly this is pronounced "hola!" caust] some of the terrible things Hitler did were to force jews to take cold showers and wear wooden shoes, even if they didn't fit or weren't the right size.
#1: If Rodney King had had a gun, he would still be alive today.
(Honestly, I think this quote might actually be from a debate we had in class one year, but it was far too priceless to omit from my list.)
And, scene.
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Oh my god, I don't know where to start. Leave it to me to get hung up on the glaring grammatical error in the essay question itself, cuz I'm just that nerdy. Is that the actual question, word for word? One of my biggest semantic pet peeves is the incorrect use of the word "impacted".
For the record, impacted means:
1 a: packed or wedged in b: deeply entrenched : not easily changed or removed
2of a tooth : wedged between the jawbone and another tooth.
It's definitely an adjective, not a verb.
Regardless, your students make me laugh out loud. Thanks for sharing.
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