In my composition class at Sichuan University, in the southwestern assignment was a personal essay. I gave some prompts in case students had trouble coming up with topics. One suggestion was to describe an incident in which the writer had felt excluded from a group. Another was to tell how he or she had responded when some endeavor went unexpectedly wrong. For the third prompt, I wrote: Have you ever been involved in a situation that was extremely threatening, or dangerous, or somehow dramatic? Tell the story, along with what you learned.
It was September, 2019, and the class consisted of engineering majors who were in their first month at university. Like virtually all Chinese undergraduates, they had been admitted solely on the basis of scores on the gaokao, the national college-entrance examination. The gaokao is notorious for pressure, and most of my students chose to write about some aspect of their highschool experience. One girl described a cruel math instructor: "He is the person whose office you enter happily and exit with pain and inferiority." Edith, a student from northern Sichuan Province, wrote about feeling excluded from her graduation banquet, because her father and his male work colleagues hijacked the event by giving long-winded speeches that praised one another. "That's what I hate, being hypocritical as some adults," she wrote.
Few students chose the third prompt. Some remarked that nothing dangerous or dramatic had ever happened, because they had spent so much of their short lives studying. But one boy, whom I'll call Vincent, submitted an essay titled "A Day Trip to the Police Station."
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 08, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 08, 2024 من The New Yorker.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
STUNTED
\"The Fall Guy.\"
PURE PLEASURE
The \"Radical Optimism\" of Dua Lipa.
PARADISE LOST
The search for a home that never was in Claire Messud's new novel.
ORIGIN STORY
What do we hope to learn from our prehistory?
WE'RE NOT SO DIFFERENT, YOU AND I
\"You'll never get away with this!\" Ultra Man vowed as he wriggled in his chains. \"You may destroy me, but you'll never destroy what I stand for!\"
STONES OF CONTENTION
The British Museum faces accusations of cultural theft-and actual theft.
A CAMPUS IN CRISIS
Dissent and defiance at Columbia's pro-Palestine protests.
TRIPLE FAULT
A meal is never just a meal in a Luca Guadagnino movie; each bite is a prelude to a kiss, every feast a form of foreplay.
NIGHT MUSIC
“Stereophonic” and Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” on Broadway.
LITTLE OLD HER
Is Taylor Swift doing too much?