Friday 5 for September 27: Don’t put that in your mouth

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Friday 5! Please copy these questions to your webspace. Answer the questions there; then leave a comment below so we’ll all know where to check out your responses. Please don’t forget to link us from your website!

Stick with me.

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten is a collection of Robert Fulghum essays published in 1986. The title essay, which you are surely familiar with (however; if you are not, here is a PDF with a couple of errors in the title and spelling), articulates literally and figuratively lessons frequently taught in American kindergartens.

A sample from the text:

These are the things I learned. Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you are sorry when you hurt somebody.

Some have criticized the wildly popular essay as being simplistic, trite, or treacly, but these people don’t remember the seed in the polystyrene cup or the bugs under the rock, or they have never had to come up with a good idea for a short, fun writing assignment for ninth-graders.

1. In your essay, “All I Need to Know I Learned from [insert title of a favorite television series],” what are some lessons you’d include?
2. In your essay, “All I Need to Know I Learned from [insert name of a favorite musician],” what are some lessons you’d include?
3. In your essay, “All I Need to Know I Learned from [insert one of your hobbies],” what are some lessons you’d include?
4. In your essay, “All I Need to Know I Learned from [insert title of a book you like],” what are some lessons you’d include?
5. In your essay, “All I Need to Know I Learned from [insert something you’re terrible at doing],” what are some lessons you’d include?

Thanks for participating, and have a stupendous, splendid, super, safe weekend!