School's Out For... Erm... Winter?

So, I just finished administering my final FINAL examination for the semester. Now I have three days of grading before my short (but hopefully relaxing) break from work. I wanted to take this time to reflect on just a few things.

Every semester I do a set of grammar lessons with my students, the last of which is a "look-alike/sound-alike" lecture. During the lecture we cover various problematic homophones and homonyms. I really hate to do exercises of this type in a college English setting, but sometimes it's necessary. So, I try to have fun with it so that the students are at least mildly entertained instead of just angry with me.

My favorite set of "problem" words is: Past/Passed. My problems tend to include things like:

                             Marty McFly went back to the ________________.

                             Bill and Ted kidnapped Socrates from the ________________________.

I like to think that I am being clever or at least funny, but it seems less and less the case these days. What's the world coming to when the youth of our nation has never seen Back To The Future? Sigh...

I also like to jazz up my mid-term and final exams with random funny answers just to see if students are paying attention. I'll occasionally hear a chuckle in the back of the room, but for the most part they stay silent. Perhaps it's because they're all serious students and hard workers... I'd like to think that. Though, it could be that they just either don't get or don't appreciate my attempts at humor.

For example:

1. When capitalizing a title in an APA style reference list, you must follow the APA capitalization rule.
    Which of the following titles has been properly formatted:

     A. Luke, I Am Your Father

     B. The lord of the rings

     C. THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BONZAI

     D. Little SHOP of HORRORS

                                 ..... and to no avail. At least I am entertaining myself, right? Right?