It was a dark stormy grey cloud filled day. In the middle of November 2016. My teacher Mr. Mayden was standing in front of the class informing us about the timed write we were about to take. I was sitting in wooden desk relaxing eating a granola bar that my friend Haley brought me. It was always cold and just a chill vibe that made you want to get straight to work or just sit there and not do anything at all. Mr. Mayden was one of those teachers that only cared about what you did in his class if you were failing otherwise you just did what you want. He was mellow, and his look was the tall and bald like sport watching dad. Usually I love his class and today we got to do a timed write which wasn’t too bad because I looked at it as if it was a strict free write. Writing has always been enjoyable for me, free writing especially I enjoyed because I got to be creative and make the story go in the direction I want it to go whether it was about dragons to do you think the president is politically correct when saying a certain statement.
But instead my teacher makes us do essays on these topics that are so controversial and if it isn’t what he is looking for you basically fail. Time writes usually are forty-minutes to an hour and you must somehow complete your rough draft and final draft all cleaned up and ready to be graded on a strict scale. This specific time write so happen to be about whether students should have to take the SAT when applying to college. I personal felt that we shouldn’t have to take it because taking it and giving you a score that turns you into a number rather than a student and ends up being one of the major factors colleges consider about you. So, I wrote that and supported it with what I could from the article and turned it in and I thought it was a pretty good straight to the point essay considering that it was mostly opinionated. Which is why I love writing and had liked this specific time write it allowed me to express my opinion and still feel like I belong.
Everyday there was a timed write it felt like a glorious day I was loving the following time writes because they were all prompts like that and I just got to express myself and not feel like a robot saying the usual yes or no and finding random pieces of evidence to go with it. A few days past and we finally got our time writes back about whether students should take the SAT. The grading scale is from a one the lowest to a nine the highest. My teacher made me think that I was legit not smart at all and that I was in the wrong class. He commented that my essay was nice, and the evidence was great but that I “missed the topic” so that is why he had to give me a three. He stated that my essay was going all over the place, when I specifically kept referring to how the SAT just takes away a student’s true values which should be the most important. I feel like to this day that my writing is always wrong and that every form of literacy that includes writing is off topic and everything I write is pointless.
This moment was major in developing my ability to write because I felt like I shouldn’t take test or any major writing assignments on because I wasn’t able to fulfill this simple task of staying on topic. I always double back when writing checking to see if it makes sense and follows the prompt exactly. Just being in the conference with the teacher when he gave my paper back I felt so embarrassed and that everything I had learned up till that point was pointless. The rest of the year in this class I just tried to keep my head down and not interact and share my writing because I questioned my abilities. Like was I writing to the teacher’s standards? Does this even sound like something I would write? If I add this will I get points taken off because it is too much detail for this one piece of evidence.