Many people like to have souvenirs, or some sort of memento from a part of their life that has special significance to them. For students, this type of memento or memory book is called a yearbook.
School days, school days, dear old golden rule days ~
A yearbook is a book put together by the students of a school. Typically, yearbooks were something for college or high school students, but in recent years a number of middle schools have opted to offer a yearbook as well. This book is full of pictures taken throughout the school year – some pictures are formal and posed, but many of the pictures are candid shots taken at school events or during the course of a typical school day. Pictures of football games and other sporting events, parades and tournaments, band concerts and dances, class projects or field trips, student clubs and other activities, as well as candid snapshots in the halls or during a class, all provide ample opportunity for making memories that are later preserved in the pages of a yearbook. Usually, the pictures are often captioned with witticisms or other inside jokes that mark the yearbook as something that is unique not only to that particular school, but also to that particular class of students.
Some yearbooks are distributed at the end of the school year. The advantage of this is that students will be able to pass around their yearbooks and have their friends autograph them before everyone parts ways during the summer vacation. The disadvantage, however, is that graduation – the highlight of the school year – is generally unable to be included due to time constraints. Because of this, some schools choose to distribute their yearbooks in the following fall, giving the yearbook staff ample time to include graduation and other end-of-the-year activities in the yearbook. The disadvantage of this approach, of course, is that graduating seniors and others who have moved away won’t be able to pass around their yearbooks for their friends to sign.
Oftentimes, signing a yearbook involves more than just scribbling one’s signature, particularly among friends. Students will write words of encouragement to their friends, reminisce about good times, share inside jokes, complain about difficult teachers, and so on. Some might even include a bit of doggerel:
Don’t make love
By the garden gate
Love is blind
But the neighbors ain’t
You’re
2 good
2 be
4 gotten
or
Remember Grant
Remember Lee
The heck with them
Remember me