A few years ago I saw for the first time, an American version of a Japanese game show called “The Unbeatable Banzuke.” Immediately after the network would play the original Japanese version with subtitles. The translation of the show’s title was “The Impossible Bridge.”
Conceptually Its pretty much the same thing as American Ninja Warrior: give athletic daredevils an imposing obstacle course and watch them try to execute super human maneuvers to complete the challenge.
It is a perfect metaphor for when a Social Studies essay goes off the rails. The mental gymnastics of non-answers and questionable logic may result in a nail biting and comical blitz around the opportunity to demonstrate any analytical thinking or comprehension of history.
The purpose of the blog posts on this issue will be to demonstrate HOW NOT to answer an essay question. My analysis may indulge in sarcasm or ridicule, but this is not intended to shame the writer, who will remain anonymous, but to entertain the reader and help them better understand their audience of one (may God help us) the American Public School Teacher.
While I do have plenty theses to start out with I would appreciate contributions from the world at large; so please submit your Unbeatable Thesisgems for publication. If my vision for these posts come to fruition it might eventually look something like http://postsecret.com/
At this time I would like, for instructional purposes, to establish a set of academic norms, givens, or assumptions that should be understood between the student and teacher before any writing begins.
The violation of these assumptions in the student’s response provides the context by which a thesis may become….
truly unbeatable!!!!.
Unbeatable Assumptions:
The teacher knows what the question is.
The teacher has a definitive answer to the question in mind.
Your thesis may reveal “the truth” but cannot be factually incorrect.
Starting your response with a rhetorical question suggests that either the student or the teacher or both don’t understand the question or the answer being offered to the question.
When the author uses “I”, “We” or “Me” they are abandoning the assumption of objectivity that is expected from a Historian.
Appealing to the teacher’s sense of humor will unreasonably bias the evaluation {for or against] and should not be done intentionally.
Your essay is a draft, not a finished product: don’t obsess over cross-outs or spelling errors (unless they are so bad they interfere with the meaning of the response then disregard assumption 7.)
