Off Campus Lunch

If the author of this essay earned a "B+" in a sophomore level high school class for this essay, then I think grade inflation has become a very serious problem.


First of all, this essay shows something that slam-poet describe with chilling humor in "The the impotence of proofreading" This person apparently ran spell-check without bothering to ask if properly spelled words were the right words. To quote Mali


"So I got myself a spell checker

and figured I was on Sleazy Street.


But there are several missed aches

that a spell chukker can¹t can¹t catch catch.

For instant, if you accidentally leave a word

your spell exchequer won¹t put it in you.

And God for billing purposes only

you should have serial problems with Tori Spelling

your spell Chekhov might replace a word

with one you had absolutely no detention of using.

Because what do you want it to douch?

It only does what you tell it to douche.

You¹re the one with your hand on the mouth."


Or the foot in the mouth.


For example:

"there have been quit a few"

"It a lame thing"

"there is no microwave in the lunchroom, so we can warm up anything,"

"After 180 days eating tough's two things gets old fast."

"All the options we have to go around in my town to eat is"

"they school food is not good for you. Some of it's not really meat."

"There are toughs kids that go out and drink and smoke, also, the ones that go and don't come back."

"It they do something not school appropriate then you give them a warning and the next time they do it there done"

"If they try going off then you get them in trouble."


And throughout, there is a fault in the title phrase: It should be "off-campus lunch" instead of "off campus lunch."


With this sort of muddled English, i would not accept this as passable for any high school student. It is barely of a level to pass in any elementary grade in which an essay was expected.


Further, I would expect an argument for a change of this sort to be much thoroughly reasoned. Here, the author announces that he does not like the present situation. He lists the disadvantages of the present situation. He does not consider alternatives to his desired solution. He lists the disadvantages of the alternative he proposes, but does little more.


Consider: the writer favors an open campus. The school administration has determined that allowing off-campus lunches has more disadvantages than advantages.


The writer then list the considers the disadvantage of a closed campus lunch.


There are fights over chairs. The writer suggests that if campus were open there would not be these fights. But the writer acknowledges that a chair is a "lame" subject for a fight. Did the writer consider that students looking for a fight will find something to replace the chairs if the campus is opened at lunch? And which is worse, a fight in a school cafeteria, which potentially involves witnesses, bystanders whose presence might subdue things, potential authority figures, easy police control, and even if any of these things are only potential benefits, they are all lost by having the fights occur elsewhere. But the writer seems to ignore all of this.


Other disadvantages: the school food is bad, and there is no way to warm food brought from home. As to the first, this writer's only response would be to open the campus, confident that high schools students will go out for healthy meals, at such places as Pizza Hut and Ranch Burger. Such confidence seems ill-placed.


Has this writer suggested improvements to the school menu? Has he suggested that the menu include more healthy, or more tasty items? Has he considered asking that the school provide means for heating food?


Then the disadvantages of off-campus lunches. The response of writing a student up after two instances of "something not school appropriate" is barely a response. This is a sad case of closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen. Why should the school administration, the police, and the community endure all of the potential problems that an open campus allows instead of adhering to the closed campus policy?


In short, poorly reasoned and poorly written, this is hardly an impressive product.