In U.S. and Canada class, I always assign people a basic term paper, 5-8 pages about anything in the U.S. and Canada that can be considered somewhat geographic.  I do this to give students a chance to explore their own interests and perhaps fall in love with geographic things.

How, though, in the entire realm of possibility, does a student think he/she (protecting the victim here) can write the following line as the conclusion to a term paper on McDonald's and get a decent grade?

 "Ppl will continue to eat @ Mcdonalds.  IDKY."

Yep, text message lingo.  I had to look up IDKY, which is apparently something this kid devised, combining the IDK (I don't know) with Y (why).  First think I thought was Idaho-Kentucky. 

Here are some other gems.  These are copied down letter for letter.

From a paper about Chinatowns in the U.S. and Canada:

"These cities include New York which has a rather famous Chinatown as well as Chicago these places are known for there dense population of mainland Chinese as well as there teaming culture centers....

Most of the Chinese who arrived in British Columbia spurred by the Gold Rush most of the Chinese arrived in British Columbia for similar reasons.  If the two thousand gold miners who arrived in California, 1500 were Chinese and nearly all of them settled in Vancouver."

From another paper about McDonald's (a suggested topic listed on the assignment sheet):

"It is no longer some great mom and pop kinda restuaraunt where you get quality food, but it is all about getting where you need to go-meaning-get your food as fast as you can."

From a kid arguing for the use of nuclear power:

"The steel wells are ten and a half inches thick so that one and a half million pounds of two hundred and fifty gallons of water per minute can flow from one hundred thousand garden hoses to cool the reactor."

From someone debating the U.S. healthcare system against Canada's:

"A film just recently came out in June by the award-winning liberal and America-hating director Michael Moor, and it was called "Sicko," this film he investigates America's health care and compares it to other countries such as Canada, France, Cuba and the United Kingdom." 

Also, the fact that I keep assigning term papers to students, despite the fact that I could just give them five exams and tell them to go away with minimal effort, amazes me to no end.  I just am wishing for like four or five straight papers that are really nice, because those take little effort to grade.  I'm only 1/3 of the way through my stack, and it doesn't seem to be shrinking with any real quickness.