So yesterday I was corresponding with an old friend, and I told him about one of the classes I taught this week. As I wrote it, I realized how silly it sounded, so I wanted to post it here, with link. One of the hardest things about teaching writing is getting students to write specific details and novel descriptions. I’m going to spend some time these last few weeks of the term really working on that. This was Thursday’s class (the classrooms all have computers with projectors):

I got one of my writing classes to focus on details and description by going through an online inkblot test with them and getting them to describe the weird abstract shapes. We also had to take the test itself of course, always selecting the most alarming response. It turned out that, collectively, we were quite psychotic and sexually dysfunctional. Then we emailed the results to a student’s mom (at his request, of course). And I used to wonder if I’d ever have a job I liked.

I had taken this inkblot test before, and my results were kind of strange. It called me secretive. I don’t think I’m especially secretive, but I did have a really hard time with some of the blots because what I saw just wasn’t offered as one of the options I could pick. For example, one of the blots is, to me, quite clearly Oberon meeting himself, but that wasn’t one of the options. I think my results would have been a lot different if a person had been giving the test instead. Anyway, if you’d like to takeit, the images are pretty cool, and you can do it here.

Enjoy your relative sanity… while it lasts!