The Homework Machine

The other day I was reading some Shel Silverstein poems from A Light in the Attic (1986), and one in particular struck me as having relevance for contemporary first year college students. It's called "The Homework Machine." Here it is:

The Homework Machine, oh the Homework Machine,
Most perfect contraption that's ever been seen.
Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime,
Snap on the switch, and in ten seconds' time,
Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be.
Here it is--"nine plus four?" and the answer is "three."
Three?
Oh me...
I guess it's not as perfect
As I thought it would be.

When I reread these lines for the first time since I was ten, I realized that Silverstein was a prophet who foresaw the impact that the internet would have on education, or, at least on my little microcosm, freshman writing. To many of my students, Google is the homework machine; it inspires awe with its ability to take students to all kinds of "reputable" sites (read Wikipedia, and that's on a good day) that answer their questions. Instead of "dropping in a dime," they enter search terms, and viola, their "homework" is instantly in front of them, ready to be plucked from cyperspace and pasted into their essays. The problem, though, is that, unlike the child in the poem, who recognizes that "three" is not the appropriate answer, many of my students tend to trust whatever they find, hoping that a mumbled statement that "well, I found it on the internet" will assuage my suspicions that Harriet Tubman may not have, in fact, been the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus to a white person.* I do not think the situation is hopeless--what I do think, however, is that I am going to need to do quite a bit more instruction on how to evaluate online source material. Yes, I am competing with the deceptively credible internet, but I am sure this can be done, somehow.

*It should be noted that Rosa Parks actually was not the first black woman to refuse to give up her bus seat--Claudette Colvin was (in 1955, months before Parks did the same thing), according to NPR's story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889

Although I did in fact find this tidbit through the "Homework Machine," I am more inclined to see its contents as credible because (1) it is through NPR and (2) well...in 1955, buses had been invented and in use for at least 6 years, whereas Tubman died in 1913.