Comments on: People Who Knew You When…

By: Wanda B. Ontheshelves

Wanda B. Ontheshelves — Mon, 16 May 2011 19:59:55 +0000

I had a “did you write this?” experience in junior high as well. I had a hard time defending myself, because I couldn’t tell the truth – we had been given a whole semester to produce a collection of writings – 5 points for each haiku, 10 points for a short story, etc. to total 100 points. So of course, I waited until the day before to start writing anything – I was slinging those pieces out like hamburgers – 5 haiku, done! 2 short stories, order up! And I remember sometime very late at night, I started writing this humongous poem about it raining all over the world – my parents had a collection of Time-Life Books, about countries, so I pulled those down to get names of cities, which the rain was gurgling down the drains of – and of course I picked the most obscure city names I could find, the ones with the most syllables, etc – so this of course is the poem my teacher thought I plagiarized. Yes, “plagiarized.” She even had my mom come up to the school – my mom asked me, “Are you SURE you didn’t read it somewhere?” etc…what was I to say: “I’m sure, I wrote the whole thing the night before!”

Anyway, I go on at such length because my mother was very very harsh, terribly, terribly…well, there was one thing a little cloud of safety surrounded, and that was my writing…when I kept insisting I had written it myself, I saw a little smile on my (three-times-a-college-dropout) mother’s face…she was proud of her daughter, throwing the jr. high english teacher for a loop. It would have been great to know about my mother’s educational struggles before I was in my 20s – maybe I wouldn’t have dropped out three times myself. If I calculate correctly, that means between my mom and me, we had to enroll six times, 7 times, to get one MFA between us, a few collections of poetry, and a novel. Practice makes perfect! So thanks to the “Doubting Thomasina” of my jr. high days – for putting a little smile on my mother’s face. I think now of the Mona Lisa’s “elusive” smile – maybe that’s actually a “mother’s pride in her daughter’s intellectual accomplishments” smile, quite rare, quite elusive, to this day, for a whole lot of women (men, people), all over the world.

By: Diane Henders

Diane Henders — Sat, 14 May 2011 23:36:40 +0000

My Grade 12 English teacher single-handedly saved me from loathing poetry for the rest of my life. I’d been completely turned off in earlier classes by a teacher who asked me to give “my interpretation” of a poem… and then told me I was wrong.

Mr. C. allowed us to read his poetry (an act of true courage), and encouraged us to write it ourselves. He made poetry accessible and enjoyable – no mean feat when faced with a classroom full of teenagers. Nearly thirty years later, I still have the dog-eared Duotang notebook containing my Grade 12 poetry project.

By: Elizabeth Lynd

Elizabeth Lynd — Fri, 13 May 2011 20:40:10 +0000

Freshman year of high school, my best friend and I gleefully registered for yearbook, and showed up eager and smiling that first day, fourth period, ready to roll. Except we were told there had been a mistake, we were ninth graders, and enrollment was limited to sophomores. Tough luck, but we’ll work it out tomorrow, and in the meantime go ahead and do the writing assignment I’m giving the rest of the class.

The next day, fourth period, we showed up again since we hadn’t been told otherwise, and Ms. Woodroffe started off with reading a piece of copy one of the kids in the class had written. It was mine. We got to stay, and yearbook became the foundation and salvation of my high school existence.

I’d been writing this and that for years, but that was one of the best public declarations that I was indeed a writer. Didn’t hurt that even the cute seniors were impressed.

Teachers matter.

By: Donna Hole

Donna Hole — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:33:34 +0000

My sophomore english teacher was read my first ever novel – novella, actually – and encouraged me to keep writing. He submitted it to a schoolastic writing contest, and even though it wasn’t accepted, I sure appreciated the effort.

………..dhole

By: Tracy Edward Wymer

Tracy Edward Wymer — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:59:24 +0000

I had a high school English teacher, Mr. D, who let me read my poems to the class. My poems were often comical, rhyming just to rhyme, and full of inappropriate, often suggestive, phrases. Nonetheless, now I am a writer and an English teacher… and I let my students read their poetry aloud.

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:52:04 +0000

My fourth grade writing teacher gave my book report of the book, “Skip, A Dog” an A+. She handed me the paper with a skeptical look and the comment, “Did you write this?” At the time I was appalled that she’d think that someone else did my homework, but now I view the comment as lavish praise indeed. It’s too bad that she didn’t hold onto the paper because I’m sure that someday it will be worth a whole, whole lot of money.

By: Ciara

Ciara — Thu, 12 May 2011 17:03:28 +0000

I had an English teacher who gave a creative writing assignment, the only rule was that we had to include 5 words that she had picked and I told a story about dragons.

When I got it back it had an F on it and she told me that dragons were not a suitable topic and that I would fail English. In the end I scored 598 points out of 600 on my leaving cert English paper and I’m writing my first novel.

If I ever get published I’d love to send her a copy with a picture of me sticking my tongue out inside. Of course that would be childish and I’d never give her the satisfaction of letting her know who much she bothered me.