those darned black native americans.

recently, i assigned a 3 paragraph essay to my students.

the writing invitation was titled "Why do you think Martin Luther King Jr. was important?"

this was right around the time of the inaguration, as well as MLK Jr. day.

one student chose to begin his essay with this sentence.

and i quote, "The black native americans killed Martin in 1884."

holy crap. the next sentence, while not quite as poignant and filled with conspiracy as the first, is still very resounding. it started off well enough, and i thought for just a second that we might have some progress, "Martin had a dream to get people.....", i should have stopped there. "....to work at war and they did." ouch.

the rest of the essay is so full of baloney it is astounding. i haven't had a chance to talk to the student yet, but there will be some dialogue concerning this writing piece.

this same student also recently gave me another glimpse into his inner workings. while i was writing something on the board and i had my back turned (to them, if my back is turned, they assume i can't hear anything) a student accused my king-conspiracy theorist that he was a cheater. he responded by saying, "Hey, i am not a cheater.....except in math and sports, and ummmmm, video games." had this been a joke, i would have laughed. but unfortunately, this was said deadpan and serious. brilliant.

after reading this post and reading the essay again, i have decided that if i happen to lose this, i really want to have it written down somewhere. so, in all of it's insanity and copied directly from the paper, here it is.

Martin Luter King Jr.
The black native americans killed Martin in 1884. Martin had a dream to get people to work at war and they did.
Martin Luter King Jr. want the war to go on the people said no because they did want to get killed. He got short by black native americans they did want him.
Martin made a song from him because people and children want to remember him because they would like to see him. Martin like his children because he want to rember.