The last instruction on my final exam this year was: “I get bored grading these papers so write me an APUSH-, economics-, and/or government-related story on the back of this sheet.” A handful of students took it upon themselves to draw on the back of the answer sheet, instead of or in addition to writing the story. These are some of their efforts. To embiggen the images, just click on them.

Some of the works were pedestrian. Here are a sandwich (could be a McMuffin, don’t know for sure), a flower against a backdrop of a rising sun, and a bad drawing of a frog:

Some were less conventional and more aesthetically challenging. Here’s a thingy from a video game. It reminds me of BattleCat from He-Man:

Here’s Jesus riding a dinosaur, which these days is about as edgy as styrofoam:

I’ll assume that this next one made sense in the context of the accompanying story. I just don’t remember the story.

This one starts off delusional and then turns horrifyingly depressing:

I found this one amusing despite the smile, the missing finger on the right hand, and the totally unflattering dress. And why cookies would take over the continent is beyond me.

Some of the works focused on economics. Here’s the substitution effect in action:

And here’s an increase in a market supply curve. It’s probably my favorite of the bunch:

Other works were more patriotic in nature. First is a map of these United States, with good ol’ Cowford denoted by an asterisk:

This student wrote an amusing and well-received poem about President Lincoln’s travails during the Civil War, but then threw in this horrendous rendering of a mistakenly mustachioed Abe:

Here’s a more accurate rendering of Lincoln. Matthew Brady himself could not have rendered Lincoln this well:

When Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, he feigned illness to avoid the humiliation of handing his sword over to General Washington. Instead, he sent General O’Hara to surrender his sword. O’Hara tried to surrender to the Comte de Rochambeau, who recognized the slight against Washington and refused the sword. The O’Hara offered it to General Washington, who refused to accept a vanquished sword from anyone other than Cornwallis, and directed O’Hara to his own second-in-command, General Benjamin Lincoln. Lincoln accepted the sword– Washington’s second accepted the surrender from Cornwallis’s second. Here is Trumbull’s depiction of Lincoln accepting the sword from O’Hara:

…and here is my student’s:

A few students drew comics. Here’s a tale of love gone sour:

And, finally, a rendering of team-teaching, which, despite what I said about the earlier supply shift, was actually my favorite:

I may adopt the following as my new logo:

All original works are for sale. Only serious offers will be considered.