So every year, I teach a class called College Readiness. It is intended, among other things, to help students apply to college and win admission; since I am an English teacher, that means helping them write application essays. I generally use the Common App prompts — which I recommend, if you’re looking for college admission essay topics — and they write several drafts over the year, with revisions and feedback about how to make their essays more interesting and more effective.

And then, for their last essay draft of the year, I have them pick one of the topics from the University of Chicago’s list of topics. They have two essay questions for their applicants: the first is a very standard, straightforward essay, about why you want to attend UChicago and what you are looking for there; and then the second — well.

They asked prior students and graduates for ideas for essay topics. And those students and alumni delivered.

You should go take a look at them — but here are some highlights.

Essay Option 1

Exponents and square roots, pencils and erasers, beta decay and electron capture. Name two things that undo each other and explain why both are necessary.
– Inspired by Emmett Cho, Class of 2027

Essay Option 2

“Where have all the flowers gone?” – Pete Seeger. Pick a question from a song title or lyric and give it your best answer.
– Inspired by Ryan Murphy, AB’21

Essay Option 3

“Vlog,” “Labradoodle,” and “Fauxmage.” Language is filled with portmanteaus. Create a new portmanteau and explain why those two things are a “patch” (perfect match).
– Inspired by Garrett Chalfin, Class of 2027

Essay Option 4

A jellyfish is not a fish. Cat burglars don’t burgle cats. Rhode Island is not an island. Write an essay about some other misnomer, and either come up with and defend a new name for it or explain why its inaccurate name should be kept.
– Inspired by Sonia Chang, Class of 2025, and Mirabella Blair, Class of 2027

Essay Option 5

Despite their origins in the Gupta Empire of India or Ancient Egypt, games like chess or bowling remain widely enjoyed today. What modern game do you believe will withstand the test of time, and why?
– Inspired by Adam Heiba, Class of 2027

Essay Option 6

There are unwritten rules that everyone follows or has heard at least once in their life. But of course, some rules should be broken or updated. What is an unwritten rule that you wish didn’t exist? (Our custom is to have five new prompts each year, but this year we decided to break with tradition. Enjoy!)
– Inspired by Maryam Abdella, Class of 2026

Essay Option 7

And, as always… the classic choose your own adventure option! In the spirit of adventurous inquiry, choose one of our past prompts (or create a question of your own). Be original, creative, thought provoking. Draw on your best qualities as a writer, thinker, visionary, social critic, sage, citizen of the world, or future citizen of the University of Chicago; take a little risk, and have fun!

So I require my students to choose one of the topics — there are over 40 others after these six — and write an essay on it. And I ask them if there is one topic they would like me to write an essay about.

This was their choice for this year:

You are on an expedition to found a colony on Mars, when from a nearby crater, a group of Martians suddenly emerges. They seem eager to communicate, but they’re the impatient kind and demand you represent the human race in one song, image, memory, proof, or other idea. What do you share with them to show that humanity is worth their time?

And here is my response.

Okay look. There are a bunch of assumptions in this question. First it assumes that I want to communicate with the Martians, when in reality I might just want to atomize them with my Blastotron 5,000,0000X Destructothunderation Disintegratorianator. And that does seem like a poor assumption since I am an American, after all. When have we ever talked first and slaughtered after? Then it assumes – even more strangely – that the Martians have the same senses we do, and would be able to appreciate something I could present to them at all, let alone having the same aesthetic senses or interest in what I would have to present. It assumes that I would have this thing on me at the moment I met them, or access to it (which probably shows an assumption based on the existence and ubiquity of smartphones, which is fine, I would no doubt have my phone with me on the Martian surface – but also, I bet the wifi signal there sucks.), and that I wouldn’t just be limited to what I would normally be able to produce on the spot – which now relies on my performance skills. (Which are, I grant, stellar. Out of this world, even. Especially my punnery.)

And worst of all: the question assumes I believe humanity is worth the Martians’ time. 

So, considering all these considerations, I have several answers, the specific choice between being reliant on the specific situation. 

First, I would not immediately blast the Martians, because of course it would be better to lull them into complacency and then carry out a sneak attack later, preferably on their home territory; that’s the proper American way.

Second, we’ll take it as a given that the Martians would have at least similar senses to mine – though I will say, if they do have a different set of senses, I would absolutely play to that, because a society focused on smell would be far more impressed by our greatest olfactory achievements than any symphony or art work or whatever I could present. (And in that case, the smell would be a Thanksgiving feast: the scents of turkey and gravy, fresh bread, and apple pie, with a delicate touch of the smell of candle wax burning, hickory wood burning in the fireplace, and a whiff of my wife’s perfume.) But for the sake of argument, we’ll accept that they would use primarily sight and sound to interact with their environment, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to communicate their intentions to me, and if they just came at me waving their tentacles or whatever, it’s Blastotron time. On sight.

So what would I show them to prove that humanity is worthwhile – or, in a more moralistic sense, that we are good? See, now we get into questions of aesthetics, for art, or into questions of values in general, and it becomes almost impossible to answer. I recognize that the goal of the prompt is to examine my aesthetics, my values, to find out what I think is the highest achievement of humanity; but since my area of interest and expertise is actually rhetoric, and that means I choose my communication with my audience in mind, I know better than to decide something like this only using my own criteria and nothing else. If you seriously just want me to pick the best thing in the world according to me with no other considerations at all, I’m going to go with the poetry of ee cummings, particularly “anyone lived in a pretty how town.” But see, much of the beauty in that poem comes from understanding both human society and the history of human poetry, and it wouldn’t translate quickly enough to the Martians; so that can’t be my answer.

If we imagine that the Martians have been watching us through Martioscopes for centuries – and why wouldn’t they? Don’t we watch fail videos constantly on YouTube? And what is human history if not one giant fail video? – then the background knowledge necessary to understand the context could actually be assumed; and in that case, I might go with something like cummings’s poetry. Or for visual art, I would probably select Michelangelo’s Pieta, or the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Or, for the sake of including multiple senses in my appeal for the value of humanity, I might go with a performance of an opera or a musical, because that can include singing, dancing, music and literature, all at once. In that case I would pick Hamilton, which I think is utterly brilliant  dramatically, musically, and poetically — though that thought process does lead me to consider movies as a way to include visual and auditory art, and to include many different kinds of aesthetic appeal: and in that case I would choose either Pleasantville, partly because it includes quite a bit of very beautiful art; or Fantasia, because it includes so much beautiful music.

But this all assumes that art is the highest achievement of humanity. I think there is an argument for that, because what is important for humanity, specifically, has to be the things that are unique to humanity; and the only things I believe are unique to humanity are the search for truth, and the creation of beauty, both for no reason apart from the intrinsic value of truth, and of beauty. Other creatures seek and discover truth – the best way to pull termites out of a mound, for instance – but they do it in pursuit of survival, not for the joy of discovery and the goal of understanding. Not that survival is less valuable than art for art’s sake and truth for understanding’s sake; but survival for survival’s sake is less human. So I do think that beauty is one of the crowning achievements of humanity: but I would have a much more difficult time arguing that it is the only, or the best, achievement of humanity, rather than truth.

So I have to also consider: what is our greatest truth?

Is it science? Perhaps; but the creation of the scientific method as a formula is pretty well associated with only one man – and I have a hard time accepting that a dude who died trying to freeze chicken is literally the one best person in the history of humanity. Especially when his name was Francis Bacon. But then, if it’s not science, what is it? What is the one greatest truth that humanity has ever known, which I could then speak to an alien race and show them what we have accomplished?

I can’t think of one. (Take it as a given that it is not math.) Mainly because so much of our truth-seeking has to do with ourselves: and we still don’t know jack about ourselves, not really. I could go with “The only thing that I know is that I know nothing,” from Socrates, or “Existence is suffering, and suffering is caused by desire” from the Buddha; but honestly, I think “All you need is love” by Sir Paul McCartney is just about as profound and valuable as either of those. 

That’s why I turn to art. But that’s not fair: because I’m biased. So my biased answer suits the intent of the essay prompt, as my choice says something about me; but it wouldn’t actually present the pinnacle of human achievement unless I assume that I am qualified to judge that – which implies that I am the pinnacle of human judgment. And I’m not: I ate Peeps dipped in salsa. That was not sound judgment on my part. This, of course, also implies that I should not be choosing the pinnacle of human artistic achievement (though I sure did that without hesitation, didn’t I?), as that too requires judgment.

So I think the best answer is this: I would not choose.

Because I know nothing, because I have great respect for humanity (And much respect for myself, don’t get me wrong; but more for humanity), and because I don’t actually accept the premise of this question, I think that what I would choose to present to show the worth of humanity is – humanity. 

All of it. All of us. Because part of the glory of humanity is how incredibly different we all are, how various, how multifarious; and yet at the same time, how similar: because my mom is nothing like your mom, and yet somehow, the way my mother used to kiss my head when she tucked me in is exactly how your mother kissed you when she tucked you in. Or maybe how your father did, or your grandparent. The way I look up into warm raindrops and smile is exactly the same way you do it, when we are dancing in the rain. The incredible pride I feel when I finish the project I’ve been working on – whether it’s a novel about vampires or pirates, or a bookshelf I built, or the successful sale of my mother-in-law’s house after her husband died – is the same as the incredible pride you feel when you finish what you’ve been working on, whether that is a sales presentation, a complete re-watch of every episode of Supernatural, or helping your child master their dance for the Christmas recital. And yet how much does your child’s dance recital routine resemble my pirate novel?

It depends: does your kid dance the hornpipe?

If I want to show humanity’s greatest achievement, I think I have to show humanity’s greatest strength: our diversity, our individuality, and our unique and personal ability to take almost anything and turn it into a work of art, a magnificent accomplishment, just because one human being – and often, no one else on the whole damn planet – saw that activity, that pursuit, that project, that idea, as worth all of one human being’s time and energy and focus: and thus that one human being accomplished something incredible.

Now, this would likely encounter some resistance from the Martians. Because, as the prompt says, these beings are impatient: they are the ones who asked me for one single piece of work to present to them to represent all of humanity.

But really? That’s just a request for a sales pitch. They’re asking me to convince them that one thing is the best thing in all of human history. (I would prove this by asking them to show me, first, the one thing that represents all of Martian culture. And by the way, if they could do so, then I would have an excellent idea of what their aesthetics or values are, and I could think of one wonderful example to show them in return. But I bet I’m right: because this seems like an absurd request with any race. I mean, show me the best cat of all time. The best horse. The greatest star. You see? There are too many criteria, too many options, in almost any collection of items as large as everything accomplished in an entire race’s history.) So I would first show them this:

And then express that here we have an example of nearly perfect writing, combined with – I wouldn’t necessarily call it nearly perfect acting, because I don’t want to judge; but it’s not only one artist, you see? The words have to be brought to life by the actor, and the end result – is that the accomplishment of one human? Or two? Or many, since directors and acting coaches and everyone else who contributed to these performances also participated in the creation of this moment. And since there are so many interpretations and versions of this particular speech written by William Shakespeare, it’s hard to say if this one is the best version of it – or maybe this one.

Or this one.

Or no. It’s this one.

(Actually, I can’t find a clip of my favorite version of this speech, which was my first encounter with it: when Nick Nolte gives the monologue in the movie Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Other than that one, I think I actually like Cumberbatch the best out of these.)

But the point is, I would argue, that because of the individual ability of humans to interpret reality, and to translate it, inculcating our own ideas and feelings into what we take in, blending what we learn with what we are – to understand one great accomplishment of one human, one also has to appreciate the other versions of the same idea, the same art, the same achievement. When I was young, I was deeply impressed by Thomas Edison – and then when I learned about Nikola Tesla, I was even more impressed by him, because of what I had felt about Edison; and then, honestly, I was once again impressed by Edison (Though I know that isn’t the popular interpretation, as the memes nowadays would have us believe that Tesla was all of the genius and Edison only stole it: but no, Edison was more than that. But this isn’t the argument I want to have with these Martians.).

If I got them listening with my versions of this speech as presented by different actors, I would then point out that every one of Shakespeare’s plays was based on a story written by someone else. That the Bard himself, whom I still consider the greatest wordsmith in the history of the English language, wrote adapted rather than original screenplays – and who knows, maybe the Boccaccio version was better. 

(Okay, that pun might be the greatest accomplishment of humanity. But probably not.)

So then, once I had them on the hook with this idea that different humans can create different versions of the same masterpiece and make it into entirely new and different masterpieces – then I would show them all of humanity that they could ever want to see.

I would show them the internet.

I would hand over my phone, and starting with the items that I have mentioned here – the poetry of ee cummings, and the art of Michelangelo, and the work of Shakespeare and of Lin-Manuel Miranda, and of Pleasantville and Fantasia, and also Mozart’s Requiem and the album In the Court of the Crimson King and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and everything else that is perfect – I would show them everything that can be found on the internet that shows what humanity is and what humanity can do.

Including the wars. And the genocides. The atrocities and the errors and the destructions. The atomic bombs. The Holocaust. The history of holy wars around the world. Because those, the perfect masterpieces of evil that we have created: those are humanity too.

And the Martians should have some warning, at least.

And then, once they were all completely riveted by what they saw on the screen?

Blastotron.