HUDSON, Ohio – Hudson City Schools has used the “642 Things to Write About” book in a college-level class without issue for five years, until uproar over its inappropriate writing prompts prompted Hudson Mayor Craig Shubert to threaten legal action against school board members if they didn’t resign.
Students’ parents had to sign a consent form acknowledging that the class, taught in collaboration with Hiram College, contained “adult themes,” though it did not specifically list sex, murder and alcohol among them.
The district provided a copy of the form to cleveland.com. View it below.
“We absolutely signed off that we understand these are college-level classes and that there might be adult material that they are exposed to,” Monica Havens, mother of a high school senior, told cleveland.com Thursday. “I am OK with adult content, but I guess it depends on your definition… I don’t know that even college students should be writing about murdering someone and how they would do it and why they would do it. Certainly there have to be better writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.”
Hudson High School Manager of Communications and Alumni Outreach Jennifer Reece told cleveland.com that the book’s prompts are used approximately once a week in the class.
“With 642 prompts, and less than 40 weeks in a school year, many of the prompts were never utilized,” Reece noted.
Reece did not specify whether Hudson schools or Hiram College was responsible for choosing class materials. However, she said the district is ”reviewing our processes for how the books are selected.”
Reece declined cleveland.com’s request for interviews with Superintendent Phillip Herman, Hudson High School Principal Brian Wilch and the class teacher as the controversy ballooned into a national news story. Instead, she released this statement:
“On Friday, September 10, the Hudson City School District was made aware of writing prompts in a supplemental resource, a writing journal, titled 642 Things to Write About, that contains content not appropriate in a high school setting. The resource was used in a college level course at the school. Application for the course includes parental acknowledgement of a college environment that may include themes or content not found in a more controlled secondary school environment. Even so, given recent concerns presented by parents of students in this course, the District collected the books and discontinued their use.”
The Board of Education, according to the statement, will undertake a “thorough investigation” and use those results to determine if any further action needs to be taken.
“While we respect the Mayor’s position within the City of Hudson, in accordance with the State laws of Ohio, the supervision of the public schools of this District is the responsibility of the Board of Education,” the statement said, adding that no board members have “indicated any intention to resign.”
Hudson City Schools Board of Education members David Zuro, Steve DiMauro, James Field and Tom Tobin have not responded to inquiries from cleveland.com as of Thursday afternoon. Member Alisa Wright replied to an email, but directed a reporter’s inquiry back to the school district.
Havens, the mother of a high school senior who previously worked as a teacher for 11 years, shared some of the prompts from the book at a recent school board meeting. They include:
- “Choose how you will die.
- Write a scene that begins: ‘It was the first time I killed a man.’
- Describe your favorite part of a man’s body using only verbs.
- You have a dream that you’ve murdered someone. Who is it, how and why did the murder happen, and what happens afterward?
- You are a serial killer. What TV shows are on your DVR list? Why?
- Write a sex scene you wouldn’t show your mom.
- You have just been caught in bed by a jealous spouse. How will you talk your way out of this?
- Write a sermon for a beloved preacher who has been caught in a sex scandal.
- Describe a time when you wanted to orgasm but couldn’t.
- Ten euphemisms for sex.
- Write a letter from the point of view of a drug addict.
- Drink a beer. Write about the taste.
- Write an X-rated Disney scenario.
- The first time you had sex.”
Other topics are perfectly benign, such as describing the worst Thanksgiving dish you’ve ever had, the way you mistreated a friend and how your cat sees the world, according to a video posted on Amazon by the bookseller.
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2021-09-16 21:52:31Z
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