Narrative

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.