Nothing to write home about...

What if my students wrote letters home about today's classes?

Dear Mom and Dad,
This morning in my freshman comp we talked about goose rectums.  We read an essay about the Berkeley Pit copper mine in Butte, Montana, which is full of water polluted with all kinds of nasty stuff. It's kind of pretty, but you wouldn't want to drink it. We read that a flock of geese landed on the polluted water and then when they took off again, they evacuated their bowels and released a microorganism that grew into a film on the water. "Goose poop had made the pit come alive," said the article. I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've heard an English professor mention goose rectums in class, so I thought you'd want to know about it.
Sincerely,
Joe Q. Freshperson

Dear Mom and Dad,
Today in my honors literature class I drew a hand turkey, just the way we used to do it in elementary school: trace around the hand to make feathers and add a beak and feet. It was neat! We were drawing maps to illustrate important points in the development of a character in Cold Mountain, and our group thought the turkey incident was pretty important. Another group drew a rattlesnake that looked like a French horn, and we talked about what kind of instruments we'd like played at our funerals. We also drew pants. I wish we could do this every day instead of all that heavy reading! I miss elementary school! Please may I go back to third grade?
Your straight-A student

Yo wassup?
College is crazy. Watching a movie about some old dead dude with a funny mustache, Chaplain or something, ain't even in color. You paid money for this? When u bringing me home?
Kthx

Dear Grandma,
You wouldn't believe the short videos we watched in my comic literature class today! We've been reading all these boring stories by famous people I've never heard of like Thurber and Cervantes, but today we watched videos chosen by students, who had to talk about the theories of comedy illustrated by the videos. It was so much more fun than reading, like, Shakespeare! First we watched a video by a comic making fun of grandmothers--not that there's anything wrong with grandmothers. Some of my best friends are grandmothers! 👧 Then there was the one called "Show Me Your"--never mind. And the one about the dead kid and the rape and the Silly String--um, what do you think about the weather we've been having? Anything exciting happening in the nursing home? I can't wait to see you and tell you all the neat stuff I've been learning!  (Well, maybe not all of it....)
Love,
Your grandkid

Maybe it's just as well that they don't write letters....