bad writing awards: this year's Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results

And the winner is . . .

"Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee."
Jim Gleeson
Madison, WI

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It might be a fun exercise to have your students read some of the winners and then discuss WHY they are bad--what norms or expectations do they violate or ignore? Then analogize that to critiquing their own writing.

(njs)