Suddenly, turkeys, hundreds of them!

November 22, 2006 9:46 AM

Hundreds of hand-drawn turkeys. Teaching assistant for a Psych class is on copier duty: multiple-page midterm for a class of over 700. Appends "Draw a turkey" to the last page of the test. Here are the results. Gobble. [via mefi projects]
posted by brownpau (61 comments total)

Obligatory detail view.
posted by brownpau at 9:48 AM on November 22, 2006

I like the guy who writes in "You must be joking." Damn kids these days, don't know how to have fun.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:55 AM on November 22, 2006

I love the one with the cat with the arrow pointing to it saying, "TURKEY"
posted by banannafish at 9:56 AM on November 22, 2006

amazing how many people still trace their hand.
posted by mrgrimm at 9:58 AM on November 22, 2006

Oh wait, these ARE "hand"-drawn. Jeez. Hella cute.

I took three front-page turkey posts before I clued in that this wasn't just a random turkey coincidence, but rather, what they like to call "American Thanksgiving."
posted by Milkman Dan at 9:59 AM on November 22, 2006

No one seems to have succumbed to the temptation of drawing a caricature of the TA.
posted by gurple at 10:01 AM on November 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

This person seems confused. Unless they have a cat named Turkey. Which would actually be pretty awesome.
posted by quin at 10:02 AM on November 22, 2006

...Madam, what you have here is a cast iron lawn dog.
- J. Thurber
posted by ewkpates at 10:02 AM on November 22, 2006

Dad?
How sad. *sniff*
posted by ClarissaWAM at 10:03 AM on November 22, 2006

Awesome.
posted by boo_radley at 10:11 AM on November 22, 2006

This one should stay after for extra help.
posted by sfts2 at 10:13 AM on November 22, 2006

9 hungry folks drew a cooked Butterball turkey

heh, I would have done that as well. And some cranberry sauce. YUM!
posted by gaspode at 10:16 AM on November 22, 2006

Acrylic on Canvas

I would have liked to have seen their elementary school work as a comparison, you could track their progress from tracing their hand to tracing their hand and drawing squiggly lines on the fingers and adding a hat. College indeed.
posted by prostyle at 10:16 AM on November 22, 2006

This person seems confused. Unless they have a cat named Turkey. Which would actually be pretty awesome.
posted by quin at 10:02 AM PST on November 22
[+]
[!]

I'd bet a nickel that that was a foreign student with no clue what a turkey is.
posted by polyhedron at 10:17 AM on November 22, 2006

[this is good]
posted by dpx.mfx at 10:17 AM on November 22, 2006

Why did I never think of this when I taught Anthro? This is awesome.
posted by cobaltnine at 10:24 AM on November 22, 2006

Very cool!
posted by brundlefly at 10:26 AM on November 22, 2006

Penn students, eh? I'm surprised noone drew their butler bringing their turkey to them.

I kid!
posted by deafmute at 10:27 AM on November 22, 2006

If it just said "Draw a turkey", how come almost everyone drew around their hand? Weird.
posted by jack_mo at 10:27 AM on November 22, 2006

I have to wonder if some of these students are helping to drag down the curve.
posted by StephenV at 10:28 AM on November 22, 2006

If it just said "Draw a turkey", how come almost everyone drew around their hand?

Because we're all taught to draw a hand turkey in kindergarten. (Also because, if you look at the pictures, you can see that the "Draw a turkey" instruction is followed by a small hand turkey saying "Gobble gobble.") Some of the non-hand turkeys were pretty nice, though.

Penn students, eh? I'm surprised noone drew their butler bringing their turkey to them.

One did (maybe).
posted by uncleozzy at 10:31 AM on November 22, 2006

gobbles!
posted by snofoam at 10:34 AM on November 22, 2006

Awesome, dmd. I approve whole-heartedly. I hope the professor does, too.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:35 AM on November 22, 2006

But why do people trace their hand to draw a turkey? Is this from childhood? And then, why do some people only trace their hand, with no legs or eyes? It's befuddling and hilarious.
posted by typewriter at 10:40 AM on November 22, 2006

I'd have marked them all down for not adding labels pointing to "Ankara" and "Istanbul".

Just sayin'.
posted by cstross at 10:40 AM on November 22, 2006

this turkey rocks! I want to see a daily comic strip featuring this turkey.

And how lame am I that it would never have occurred to me to draw a "hand turkey?"
posted by I, Credulous at 10:42 AM on November 22, 2006

The professor, Andrew Shatte, was a winner of the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching last year. He's an incredible "rock-star" style professor. The students adore him - he's got a comedian's sense of timing and is completely in his element on stage in front of 700 people.

He's Australian, and makes a big deal out of it - which pretty much draws his character for you.

He hasn't said anything about it to me yet, but I don't anticipate a problem :)
posted by dmd at 10:43 AM on November 22, 2006

I'm pretty disappointed, honestly. It says a great deal about the over demographic when it is overrun with hand turkeys as opposed what turkeys really look like.

I did an exercise as part of a class in invention wherein we were instructed to draw a grasshopper from memory. Then we were given a verbal description and asked to try again. The point of the exercise was one in communication and awareness. Everyone in the room knew what a grasshopper was, everyone could draw something more or less recognizable as a grasshopper, but a small portion knew what a grasshopper actually looked like and could draw that.

I expected to see far more in that category.
posted by plinth at 10:54 AM on November 22, 2006

It says a great deal about the over demographic when it is overrun with hand turkeys as opposed what turkeys really look like.

Says what about the demographic? That they lack life-drawing skills? That they don't spend enough time around turkeys?
posted by cortex at 10:58 AM on November 22, 2006

hehe
posted by thirteenkiller at 10:58 AM on November 22, 2006

He he, I love hand turkeys, and I have no idea why.
But hey, it provides me a shameless self link that's actually vaguely relevant:

My store's faq
(scroll to the bottom)
posted by Jezztek at 11:22 AM on November 22, 2006

No, no. Also included on the test bit was a little drawing of a hand, and the words "gobble gobble". You can see it incorporated in a few of the drawings.

Here.

And here.

So they were just following the cue.
posted by redsparkler at 11:28 AM on November 22, 2006

So they were just following the cue.

Which is exactly why he should have printed "Draw a Turkey" followed by a crude outline of a foot with a squiggly speech bubble exclaiming "Woof woof!"
posted by prostyle at 11:38 AM on November 22, 2006

I actually had a big orange cat named Turkey while in college. He was great but we had to give him back to the neighbors when we moved.
posted by pwb503 at 11:51 AM on November 22, 2006

Oh, I get it. I was completely unfamiliar with the hand-turkey before today. If it were the student, I would think it was some pysch thing. Like how many people would follow the cue and trace their hand, how many will do it free-form, how many etc. Oh, I guess it kinda did end up like that!

Gobble gooble.
posted by typewriter at 11:53 AM on November 22, 2006

Delicious spaceship.
Gobbles the drinky-bird.
Incorporating the surroundings.
Subliminal message to a psychology professor.
posted by Terminal Verbosity at 11:57 AM on November 22, 2006

Because we're all taught to draw a hand turkey in kindergarten.

All of you? This concept is giving me a hard time. I'm finding it hard to imagine even one kindergarten teacher thinking the turkey looks like a tracing of someone's hand, let alone all of them.
posted by sfenders at 12:03 PM on November 22, 2006

Well, when we did the project with three year olds, we just daubed paint on their hands and then smacked it on the paper. Presto! Give 'em googly eyes and pipecleaner legs and little triangle beaks, and that's a turkey it's near impossible to foul up, with the added benefit of being a touching bit of ephemera commemorating the size your child's hand once was.
posted by redsparkler at 12:16 PM on November 22, 2006

sfenders, nobody is trying to argue that a turkey looks like a tracing of a hand. However, most of use would agree that a tracing of a hand bears a resemblance to a turkey. The brain is funny like that.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:21 PM on November 22, 2006

I'm finding it hard to imagine even one kindergarten teacher thinking the turkey looks like a tracing of someone's hand

It's not like they come up with the idea independently. It's a standard Thanksgiving activity, passed down over the years. Heck, these teachers probably were doing it when they were kids. I know I was.
posted by smackfu at 12:43 PM on November 22, 2006

It's a standard Thanksgiving activity, passed down over the years.

Yup.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:54 PM on November 22, 2006 [1 favorite]

I'm finding it hard to imagine even one kindergarten teacher thinking the turkey looks like a tracing of someone's hand

Imagine the lawsuits when it came time to draw a male chicken.
posted by Divine_Wino at 1:28 PM on November 22, 2006

More stats: inexplicably, at least six turkeys have extra legs.
posted by miagaille at 1:48 PM on November 22, 2006

Ooh, thanks! I've added that as a tag.
posted by dmd at 1:53 PM on November 22, 2006

turkey
posted by FunkyHelix at 3:02 PM on November 22, 2006

This made my day.
posted by PercussivePaul at 3:38 PM on November 22, 2006

Besides the whole hand thing, not one of these geniuses knows how to draw?
posted by signal at 6:42 PM on November 22, 2006

thanks, this is fantastic.
posted by unknowncommand at 7:08 PM on November 22, 2006

This is great.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:09 PM on November 22, 2006

So you don't just hold up the middle finger when you trace the hand then? Good to know.
*crumple*
posted by Smedleyman at 9:49 PM on November 22, 2006

This is simply brilliant.

sfenders: I was under the opposite impression, that everyone knew about hand-turkeys. We were just making them the other day with our 3 year old.

Also, those of you condemning the art work need to open your mind a little. I have an IQ well above average (as does probably every student in that class... it IS Penn) and I can't draw a goddamn circle freehand. Artistic ability and intelligence may not be mutually exclusive, but they certainly are not dependent in any way.

Judging someone's intellect by their artwork (or their handwriting) is not only grossly unfair, but grossly inaccurate.
posted by Ynoxas at 10:05 PM on November 22, 2006

I don't think it's so much judging their intellect by the artwork as the surprise at the fact that this is a Psych 1 class, apparently with a fair few students. As a low-level course, one would expect a broad range of students to be taking it, including those less intellectually and more artistically inclined. I know that if I'd taken this test, I would've spent as much time as was remaining on the test to meticulously draw and shade a realistic turkey, myself. I think the surprise is that there wasn't a single individual of this persuasion in the sample given. *shrug*
posted by po at 12:20 AM on November 23, 2006

I have an IQ well above average (as does probably every student in that class... it IS Penn) and I can't draw a goddamn circle freehand.

Right, which is why I asked "not one of these geniuses knows how to draw?" Try to read it without the assumption of irony.

Artistic ability and intelligence may not be mutually exclusive, but they certainly are not dependent in any way.

I'd say artistic ability is a form (or part) of intelligence (We don't call Leonardo a genius for his math skills (I'm not saying he didn't have math skills (he did), just that if that was all he had we probably would never have heard of him)).
posted by signal at 4:09 AM on November 23, 2006

It's a form of intelligence, signal. Same as musical talent, or math talent, or linguistic.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 4:43 AM on November 23, 2006

I know that if I'd taken this test, I would've spent as much time as was remaining on the test to meticulously draw and shade a realistic turkey, myself. I think the surprise is that there wasn't a single individual of this persuasion in the sample given.

how about this one?
posted by dmd at 5:49 AM on November 23, 2006

They're still funny the next day!
posted by typewriter at 6:19 AM on November 23, 2006

I am Fat For STOOOOPID?!
posted by stilgar at 11:19 AM on November 23, 2006

Stilgar - The Fedaykin read it "I am fat & stoooopid."
posted by jsteward at 11:37 AM on November 23, 2006

I think it's interesting how many lefties take Pysch 1, more than I would have expected.

(Incidentally, and this story has no point, I ended up with the task of decorating a small chalkboard at work for the purposes of advertising coffee and was told to update it on a weekly basis and have it be seasonally relevant. Last week had a hand-turkey (with added feathers) state that he was grateful for coffee and the response I got was a fifty/fifty split of "Who did the turkey? That's so CUTE!" and "Whose hand is that? Are we still in kindergarten?")
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:29 PM on November 23, 2006

I think it's interesting how many lefties take Pysch 1, more than I would have expected.

If you are getting that from "108 were "left handed" ... 72 were "right handed" ... although I counted freehand-drawn hands too, and wasn't very exact about how I chose some of the blobbier ones." I think that you might possibly be misreading.

A "left-handed" turkey would be a turkey drawn on a tracing of a left hand. The person who is more likely to trace the left hand instead of the right is a right handed person. Unless *I* am the one who is mistaken.
posted by kayjay at 11:05 AM on November 25, 2006

kayjay - but still, given the natural occurrence of left-handedness in the wild (20%, generously) you'd expect a left:right turkey ratio more like 5:1, not the 3:2 that I got.

My guess is that because the little example icon sketch was a right-hand-turkey, people consciously or unconsciously followed that model, which boosted the number of right-turkeys far above what they would have been otherwise.
posted by dmd at 6:08 AM on November 27, 2006