Monday, May 11, 2009

WTF

Today the Bunster brought home #68 in the series of tiny little pamphlets that his school uses in place of the old Dick-and-Jane books I remember from my childhood. You know the stuff: "See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run. See Jane. See Jane run." and so on. Well, compared to these modern little gems, the D & J's were major works of literature.

Here's the latest, in its entirety:
Music
Don likes music.
Don's mom also likes music.
Mom says humans can make nice music.
Mom drops Don off for music class.
Don plays the bugle.
Don makes music with his bugle.
Don is a pupil in music class.
Don likes music class.
Mr. Cupid is starting a new music unit.
It is a unit of new music.
Don is a human who makes music.
He makes music with his bugle.
Yes, it's plotless and written by a robot with a tin ear. Why don't they just have the kids read a random list of words with the "u" sound? It would at least be less of an affront to the sensibilities of anyone who values literature and the English language.

The previous sixty-seven booklets were varying degrees of awful. Meaning that none were actually good, but about a half-dozen of them were passable and at least another dozen were as bad as this or worse.

I know I can do better. Indeed, it would be quite difficult to do worse. So here's my first attempt:

See this pamphlet? It is a unit of words. It is a unit of words with the sound "u." You are a human. You can read the words. You are a human who reads words with your eyes. Mom says humans who read words like this will grow up with no appreciation of the beauty of the English language. Mom despairs for the young humans being taught with this crap.

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2 Comments:

At 5/12/2009 8:23 AM, Blogger Steve Buccellato said...

Hey, you're right...I AM a human!

 
At 5/15/2010 8:00 AM, Blogger Jeffrey Holton said...

I fell onto this blog a moment ago searching for the source of "each of us is a flower growing in life's garden" that my kindergarten son sang in a presentation a few days ago.

And I find this.

I love this!

I think my son could read your pamphlet. He might even get the point. (He's good.) :)

 

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