Why Ninjas?

I used to have a MySpace account.  I started my blog there.  But after I had a few too many technical difficulties, I moved the blog here.  I have since closed the MySpace account.  I hate to lose all of my blogs from that time, so from time to time I'm going to repost them here. 

This one was originally posted on October 21, 2006.  I was covering three days between long-term subs.  The first long-term sub's assignment was up, but the next long-term sub couldn't start until the next week.  

The question asked them to describe how sugar dissolves in water.  It had nothing to do with ninjas.  


It was supposed to be a step-by-step write up, but since less than 1/4th of the class actually turned anything in, I was being generous.  If they made an effort and at least got in the ballpark, I gave points.  


Mostly the papers were on topic.  The answers were rather vague and undefined.  However, they were freshmen mostly, and I was only there for three days, so I didn't have a chance to school them on how to properly answer such questions. 


And then I got the paper on ninjas.  It went something like this: the ninjas attacked the sugar molecules while the water molecules fell to the sidewalk, shaking (wait, the sugar was quaking on the sidewalk while the ninjas attacked the water...oh, bother).  Then the ninjas used grenades to blow them all up, thereby combining them...  Oh, it was a mess.  I read it three times.  I laughed out loud.  


I did give him a couple points.  One for turning something in and one for making me laugh.  Like I said, I was being generous. 


The other paper I got from him also referenced ninjas, but by the time I graded that I was not as amused.  I'm not quite sure if he was just being cute, if he didn't have an answer, or if he thought that I wasn't going to read it.  Mistake.  


I graded all the work I assigned so that the next sub only had to deal with that which he assigned.  As it turned out, I didn't have all that much to grade.