Halp /prog/ :(

Well my professor is doing a chapter over functional languages and he decided he wanted us to try something new. He wants us to program a couple things up in haskell.

I don't know shit about haskell and I've never even touched a functional language, but he expects us to know everything about them for some reason.

does /prog/ know anything helpful about haskell? :(

I am in favour of having students implement as much as possible even if useless and cliché. Have them deal with sorting algorithms in Scheme all semester and then have them implement MIDI out of the blue for the final test. Oh and let's not forget Conway's Game of Life in Excel using VBA.
telling them to use a combinatorial approach for something it's not appropriate for is only going to make them think the combinatorial approach sucks. why not teach them about situations in which it is appropriate instead?