What's to learn?

I received a forwarded email, containing an article called "Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy: Stunning Break with Last Eight Years." No attribution with the email, no author or originating website or source. These absences made me suspicious, of course, and I suspected that the article might be a spoof.

But the article cited a University of Minnesota professor of presidential history, Davis Logsdon, not a name I recognized, so naturally I googled him.

Turns out the entire article was written by Andy Borowitz, a writer who skewers politics and popular culture. Like Stewart and Kolbert, Borowitz's satire asks us to be critical, to see stupidities, to think.

How can I use satire with my students to help them think critically? I have so many students who don't want to read to learn, who instead want to be told. They ask, "What's the point?" and "What am I supposed to learn?" and "What do *you* think - you're giving me the grade?"

Something to work on, as usual.