Dear Professor Mendham

At the end of the College Writing II course I taught in the Fall of 2006, I had the students perform a small group exercise in which they were asked to imagine some future professor writing a letter about what the students were like as writers. Here are three very hilarious examples:

Dear Professor Mendham:

I have several of your College Writing II students in my Poetry Interrogation class. Though the students seem very enthusiastic about taking this course, I am concerned about their reluctance to “tie the poem to a chair and torture a confession out of it.” Isn’t that what interrogation is all about?

They have taken a strange liking to dropping mice onto the poetry. I even had one student come in with waterskis! I am still trying to figure that one out.

All that aside, your students are quite knowledgeable and very efficient at proofreading and a pleasure to have in class, though I sometimes wonder if they are on something, acid perhaps.

Sincerely,
Professor Poetre N. Anutshell

Dear Professor Mendham

I have several of your students from College Writing II in my accounting class. Your example is most evident in their work. I am particularly impressed with the formatting of the notes they pass in class. The creative and well-cited excuses for late work, frequent absences and lack of preparation are numerous and highly inventive. Their use of MLA format in forging physician notes is exceptional.

I was, however, troubled by a particular note which declared my lesson plan "ungood." I trust this means something to you. Something just isn't adding up!

Sincerely,

Professor Numero Uno
Accounts & Accountability
123 Audit Trail
Keene, NH 03431

Dear Professor Mendham

Several of your students are currently in residence at our facility in Concord. These delightful inmates feel the need to recite Orwell at all hours of the day and are often found chanting, "War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength."

When they're not yelling in the cafe they are writing excellent appeals with proper MLA format. They show impressive research skills and their ability to cite case studies is stellar. Too bad you're not a criminal law teacher.

Regards,
Smith N. Wesson
Concord State Prison
P.S. Who is Big Brother?

Orwell and Faulkner

Links to primary texts by George Orwell and William Faulkner have been added to the College Writing at FPC web page:

• Politics and the English Language, an essay by George Orwell
• 1984, the novel by George Orwell
• William Faulkner's acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature (audio recording) at American Rhetoric
• The Sound and the Fury, a novel by William Faulkner