An Interesting Paper Topic

(Note to Uncle Roger: I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while!  Things got a bit busy.)

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading through and commenting on students' drafts when I came upon a topic I can easily say I've never seen before in a student paper. Now that's a pretty amazing feat considering I've been at this teaching gig for a little over a decade now.  "What was the topic?" you ask. Well...prepare yourself.  Here is an excerpt from a paragraph:

"First you need to get a dead raccoon. Next, you will lift the raccoon up and tie twine around the left ankle. Then you need to loop the other end of the twine around a branch at a comfortable working height for you. After that, you then tie the loose end of the twine on the right ankle of the raccoon. You have successfully hung your raccoon for the skinning process."

Yes, dear readers, this student wrote his process paper on how to actually take the skin off of a raccoon. You can imagine my shock when I read the first few lines. I guess one good thing I can say about it is that his description was pretty good and his sense of process was easy to follow though I did have to look away a few times while reading in order to save myself from passing out/crying/vomiting/all of the above. The worst part was when he wrote about cutting the skin off by the nose. Oh Lord, help me!

As you know, I'm no hunter, I never have been and I never will be. That doesn't mean I think others shouldn't; it's just not my thing, but please, please, please if you are a hunter, do not write a paper about killing, skinning, etc. I just can't take it!

I do have to say this student did a good job of writing about what he knew, and if I had any inclination to indeed skin a dead raccoon, I'm sure his paper would have made the process easier to undertake. LIke a good teacher, I always do my best to find some way to provide a positive comment for each student's paper. Needless to say, this was one presented the biggest challenge in that department.