It was one of those “Kids say the darndest things” moments, yesterday, as I read through a student’s essay comparing the play “The Diary of Anne Frank,” to the novel Jacob’s Rescue. One of the first lessons I taught was that, in writing, the author/artist should always be named directly following the in the naming of his/her novel, play, song, or work of art.
Most of the kids pulled off that feat. Of course there were a few misspellings — most common being “Francis” in stead od the feminine Frances Goodrich as one of the authors of the play. Ms. Goodrich and Mr. Albert Hackett wrote that one. A Malka Drucker and Michael Halperin wrote the novel. One of the funnier misspellings I think I saw today was “Malted Trucker,” and while it made me laugh and understand how that spelling showed up on the paper, nothing prepared me for the following line from a student’s paper:
..and the play “The Diary of Anne Frank,” by Eleanor Roosevelt…
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. Tears welled up in my eyes and I had to leave the room. I took the paper down to another teacher who subsequently crawled the hallway while wiping giggles from his eyes.
I honestly have no idea where that came from, I really don’t. Never mentioned the lady once in class, and I’m pretty sure she had nothing to do with the play at all.
Now, while it was strange to see this error once, it was even stranger to hear this new information from three different students.
Stranger still that when I told this story to the other English teacher, she said: You know. It’s strange. Just today a student was telling me about how impressive and meaningful it was that Eleanor Roosevelt wouldn’t move to the back of the bus when she was asked.
True stuff, there.
I guess that’s just something we never knew. Eleanor Roosevelt, while juggling all her philanthropic work, somehow also managed to write a play while singlehandedly changing the face of the civil rights movement. She was a busy lady.
I wonder what we don’t know about Ladybird Johnson.
UPDATE:
I asked one of the students where he got the information. He told me: “Google.” So we searched for the link he followed. It was a Wikipedia link that noted, at the bottom, in the Further Reading section, that noted Eleanor Roosevelt as the author of the introduction to the 1993 Bantam paperback edition.
Filed under: Kids Make Me Laugh, Students, True Stuff
She’s always been my personal hero, that Eleanor Roosevelt.
I can’t wait to find out about that time she saved the earth from a catastrophic meteor impact by flying a spaceship to its surface, drilling holes into it, filling it with explosives, and blowing it up before flying back to make out with Bruce Willis’ daughter.