How do you feel about sarcasm?
(A) I think it's just the greatest!
(B) Oh, totally, it's just the best.
What do you think about homophones?
(A) Too... a lot to hear, so meaning's questionable.
(B) Two... allot to here, sew meanings: question a bull.
What's your position regarding double-entendre?
(A) It's invasive, so much it hurts sometimes, but I think I can take it.
(B) I'll give the prick who's responsible for it a licking.
What's the best use of a thesaurus?
(A) to find the most precise word for expressing your idea.
(B) to ascertain the maximally punctilious cognomen for articulating
thine conception.
Can a sentence communicate meaning clearly, yet still be 'incorrect'?
(A) 'Correct' sentences need to be conceptually coherent and
grammatically polished.
(B) If you and me is talking, I go “lol” and ur like “haha”?
Fire, fam: we're on lock. dictionary police can GTFO.
What is poetry?
(A) The pinnacle of language efficiency.
(B) A paintbrush guided by Hegelian dialectics,
Handle forged on heart-strings and bristles on a breaths' tempo,
Wicking color from a spectrum well of senses,
Fashioning patterns ecstatic unto madness and yet formal unto rhyming.
What is a final draft?
(A) An oxymoron.
(B) Something you give away, knowing that next time you read it,
you will be meeting a previous draft of yourself.
* * * * *
[ANSWER KEY:
If you stopped reading because these questions are silly and pointless—
don't be a writer.
If you stopped reading to come up with other answers,
or to write your own questions—
hi friend :) keep writing.]
Multiple choice. This is something that haunts everyone, as it usually pertains to tests, quizzes, or some sort of assignment that gives you a grade. Throughout my school career, I personally have always feared multiple choice. Even if I studied super hard for an exam and felt confident in my answers while taking it, I always have this sense of nervousness whenever I look at a multiple choice question. Needless to say, I was wary of the poem when I first laid eyes on it because it was, of course, formatted as multiple choice. But contrary to other questions, I found these to be amusing and the questions and answer choices made me laugh. I loved how both options for each question gave the reader a choice in how to respond, however option A seemed to be more of the logical, normal definition/ answer one would expect, while option B was the creative, “off the rails” type of response. Option b was definitely more for comedic effect, and I took it wholeheartedly, some of the “b” options even having my exact thoughts on the question written down! This was the first “multiple-choice” I never felt nervous about, and I loved that it was connected to English, an actual school subject, to give it more of an educational feel. To top it all off, the poem ended with an answer key, and due to reading till the very end, it deemed me a writer, which I was super happy about because I love language arts – reading, writing – all of it. The poem also made me think about how there are double, triple, or even more answers to a question and how the possibilities are endless, if you really get creative with how to answer a question that is asked. I liked how it encouraged thinking outside the box and challenged the conventional way of learning and answering questions, which resonates with me and other students who might feel suppressed by a rigid curriculum. I appreciated the humor and banter/ funny wordplay that was used to make the poem sound clever, especially with talking about sarcasm and expressing it in the answer choices too.
ReplyDeleteMay you always feel constrained and claustrophobic before the jail-bars of a multiple-choice question ... and full with bubbling-mind possibilities at the open range of a blank page :)
DeleteI loved how unconventional this poem was because it combined two intellectually-related things that I would have never considered together. Poems, often considered the epitome of literature, are often insightful and intense and require self-reflection and the patience to explore deeper meanings and truths while multiple choice is much more straightforward and depends on knowledge of a topic rather than feeling, but they are both integral parts of an English curriculum and school in general. I was a little confused reading the poem at first because it was so different from what I have seen in terms of content and structure but it was still like a regular poem in that each question was like a new stanza and introduced new ideas. The poem as a whole was really funny to me and I thought that it was so clever to have a coherent, standard answer and a creative, witty answer that in my opinion, does a much better job of responding to the question, even if it contradicts the widely accepted meaning for it that we have curated. It reminded me that questions are often answered in close-ended ways, which leave no room for other interpretations or further deliberations, but some of the best answers can be ones where it is not definitive. I believe that many people fail to think of creative answers because dialogue has become mandatory instead of intentional, and conversations are more about reaching a conclusion rather than enjoying the process it takes to get there. My favourite questions were the homophone one because I think it's fascinating that two very different things can sound the exact same, the thesaurus one because I love learning random words that I would never use in any reasonable setting, and the final draft one because I thought it was really introspective. I also really liked the answer key portion of the poem because it concludes the poem really well and answers to the aforementioned choices never really come, showing again how answers do not have to be straightforward to be effective. - Lauren C.
ReplyDelete