The Ballad of Mike Edwards and the PDS

Mike Edwards had himself a pencil.

Weighed about forty pound.

Every time Mike Edwards drew a squiggly edit mark

Drove his pencil two inches in the ground,

Lawd, Lawd,

Drove his pencil two inches in the ground.

Mike Edwards’s blog was named Vitia.

The logo looked the same upside down.

He’d sharpen up his pencil on both of its ends.

Called his pencil “Vitia” too, for the sound,

Lawd, Lawd.

Called his pencil “Vitia” too, for the sound.

Mike Edwards’s Dean, Captain Tommy

Had a squared-away drive to succeed.

Loved Mike Edwards like his only blessed son.

Said, “I’ll get you any funding that you need,”

Lawd, Lawd.

Said “I’ll get you any funding that you need.”

PDS salesman said to Captain Tommy,

“I think your students might try to plagiarize.

Let me tell you ’bout a tool that’ll help enforce the rule,

And catch those cheaters by surprise,

Lawd, lawd.

It’ll catch those cheaters by surprise.”

Mike Edwards said to Captain Tommy

“TurnItIn.com appropriates the value of student writing for the sake of its own profits, while at the same time criminalizing students for the very same practice.

I’d rather die with my pencil in my hand,

Lawd, Lawd.

Die with my pencil in my hand.”

Mike Edwards sharpened up “Vitia.”

The salesman logged himself in.

And he set two even stacks of papers on his desk.

Said, “The dean’ll grant you tenure if you win,

Lawd, Lawd.

Dean’ll grant you tenure if you win.”

The Ballad of Mike Edwards and the PDS (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)

3 thoughts on “The Ballad of Mike Edwards and the PDS

  1. Catchy tune, Dennis, but a little hard to dance to. Or to sing that fifth stanza, lawd, lawd. But your cleverness helps drive home a point (or two, given the pencil), so I say cheers. Laud, Laud, yes I do.

  2. No, just having a little fun.

    By the way, I think your latest blog on this topic is the best so far…

    A while back, writing teachers were cheered by the arrival of a technological solution to the relentlessly proliferative scourge of spelling errors committed by the lazy and illiterate students populating their courses. Today, there’s a substantial body of empirical evidence pointing to the radical increase in homonym and wrong word errors in student writing following the rise in popularity of spelling checkers in word processing applications. So tell me: what kind of increase in ethical errors might we imagine seeing in student writing should we pass along to machines the apparently overly onerous task of actually paying attention to how our students write?

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