Some of my students last year were assigned a reading of stupid satire called "Tortilla Chips Dependency" by Judy D'Arville. The essay is about the author's addiction to tortilla chips, poking fun at people with serious addictions to drugs or alcohol with jabs at the shame of addiction and rehab groups. The main idea of the essay is quitting and how difficult it is to do.

It always gets my gun when high school students are assigned idiotic pieces of readings. They are not idiots, but they are quick to play that role if given the chance. They will rise to the challenge, but inane and unrelatable pieces like this one make them feel like little children, coddled and hand-held by their adoring pre-school teachers.

D'Arville's piece starts out in a serious tone. Then the reader gets to the part about tortilla chips and wonders whether D'Arville is serious and knows that they are in for a funny essay.

D'Arville then goes into a narrative about her fall into addiction. From the start of her addiction, which began literally as a bag fell into her hands as a sign from God, the addicition could only be stopped by a blessing from God.

I don't see the point, but we need to KEEP KIDS OFF DRUGS by the most means imaginable, inundating them with no-no's in every classroom. D'Arville also satirizes other addictions such as smoking, alchohol, and drugs. She begins with addictive qualities and how fast a person can get addicted and then moves on to the horrible health detriments an addiction can have. D'Arville speaks of common side effects of not feeding an addiction. She moves to a more serious note of society turning down its nose to people with an addiction, referring to people that think of people with an addiction as weak and the worst of society. It's pandering; it's written specifically for kids, assuming their mental capacity, which is always dangerous.

D'Arville goes onto speak of centers that help people with addictions that they cannot beat on their own. The tortilla chip version of a group like AA is "COME CLEAN QUITTERS." She gets booted out of the program because she has salsa and chips on her breath.

Come on, public school system, give these kids some challenge! They can think for themselves a bit better than this and if they can't, this sort of childish satire isn't going to help them.