Joseph Loyer
Composition 1
Dilbeck
9/6/13
Narrative
It was the second week of being a high school senior. It
didn’t feel any different than being in any other grade to me. The classrooms
looked the same, with the same cheesy motivational posters smothering the
walls. I walked to English and knew we were going over our first project of the
year and we were learning our topic to write about. When I walked in I was
dumbfounded.
I walked in saw the same teacher, a short middle aged
woman that took her job very seriously as I saw the day before, the same
posters, and the same students. Suddenly the bell rang and class had started
and we were going over our project. Every student was surprised when the
teacher said, “For this essay I’m going to let you write about anything you
want, no guidelines, no assigned prompt, just what you want to write about.”
Nobody understood the concept. She said she would give us a topic and would
give us no guidelines on how to do it. What were we supposed to say? Some students
complained, others got actually angry at the teacher some of the replies by
various students were, “What!? How are we supposed to do this with no
guidelines?” other ones were, “I hope you’re not expecting students to do well
on this.” Nobody simply knew what to write on because no one had ever written
on their own other than the assignment that was given by the teacher.
I was completely surprised. I kept thinking about what I
was going to write on. I was shocked that a teacher would give high school
seniors such an assignment. My mind
couldn’t really fathom that I had all of the choice in this paper. This is what
scared me as well because I didn’t know if I was doing something wrong or
right. I was also worrying about how
long it was supposed to be and everything like that. I kept trying to analyze
why the teacher would give us such a bizarre assignment. Was it to just see how
we all wrote? Or does she have expectations for us? All of these questions were
in my head at the time. So I went home and started writing. I thought maybe if
I just stopped worrying and just try to get the paper done, and then my worries
would just go away.
I ended up writing about music and skateboarding and
everything else I liked and wrote about anything I was interested in. I
realized I could go on and on writing the assignment just expressing my ideas
that were in my head onto this paper. So I decided to stop the paper and just
turn in what I had. I wasn’t really pressured because it was just a rough
draft. I figured that I had written so much that the teacher would find that I
had a certain writing style or something and she would take that into account
on assignments and that she was looking at all the students.
I finished the paper and turned it in unlike half of the
students in the classroom. I felt embarrassed about it and it just didn’t seem
right. I was just so confused and angry about the whole situation and felt
stupid. I was just thinking, “At least I got it done so I can’t get the worst
grade.” About a week later I got my essay back and I had gotten a D. I wasn’t
really surprised considering the “guidelines” we were given.
Overall
me and the subject of English have never been very good friends. I knew that
essay was bad. I just turned it in anyway. The experience taught me that doing
what you want isn’t always the best decision when it comes to school work. It
taught me to keep an open mind and try to just roll with the punches when it
comes to writing English essays.
