“We are a powerful race, but we are not a violent one. The wars you wage on your planet are an outdated notion to us, as we prefer more intellectual pursuits. We also enjoy jogging, hiking, basketball, and golf, so we will accept nothing but the best in athletic footwear from Adidas, Reebok, and Converse. The citizens of our planet are in need of all manner of sport shoes, from cross trainers to hiking boots.|Bring them now, humans!” —People of Earth: We Come in Search of Quality Name-Brand Footware at Reasonable Prices (The Onion)

My freshman composition students are about to submit a paper in which an imaginary stranger from a completely different culture examines the items that they are wearing or carrying with them. My “Stranger Essay” assignment is in many ways the opposite of the Onion’s footwear article.