I spent most of the weekend with other English majors, grading papers for the Scholastic Writing Contest. Students submit their poetry, memoirs, fiction, scripts, and/or critical writing to Scholastic. Scholastic offers $1.5 million in prize money (awarded as scholarships) plus publication in America's Best Teen Writing. And they pay judges $10/hr, plus lunch.
We each scored three packets from any genre we chose. Each packet had about 300 pages from 10-20 authors. Some of it was quite good; some was dreadful. We also kept a tally of common tropes. "Death of a grandparent" won hands down, followed by "cancer", "pirates", and "breasts". Teenagers write about breasts - who knew? "White supremacy" came near the bottom of the pack, but above 9/11 and Iraq. In fact, I don't think any of the 20 judges in the room read a word about Iraq or Afghanistan.
I'm not entirely sure how this war has escaped the notice of our teenagers (and their teachers) but it made me pause. Maybe its just the sample. Private and magnet-school kids dominated the most recent America's Best Teen Writing. Or maybe it's the way the press covers war now. Or maybe the idea of going to college looking like the kids I see every day on my campus, young and strong and wheelchair-bound, maybe armless or handless or fingerless and 20, not even old enough to rent a car, maybe that idea just scares the words out of them.