Monday, December 15, 2008

Writing as Punishment

When your students complain that your assignments are punitive, now they have a little precedent to back up their argument. A superior court judge in New Jersey ordered two young men, who were convicted for going along with the marijuana growing plan of their roommate, to read and write essays about

Judgment at Nuremburg, a 1957 play by Abby Mann that was adapted into the Academy Award-winning 1961 film about Nazi war criminals brought to justice for their crimes against humanity. The significance of the assignment is that the war criminals claimed to just be following orders,
just as the two young men said they were following their roommate. Via Prof. Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy Blog.

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