I remember from my school days, both high school and college, all of the time starting writing assignments, having to face that empty page. That empty page has so much promise; if I can only find the right words to fulfill that potential. Usually, back then, I failed miserably.
I would try. And I would fail. And I invariably would think that just having tried hard made it OK that I had missed the point of the assignment. With writing and for other subjects too, it was easy to rationalize the results. I was so close. I could have done better if just a few things had been done differently. I never would have admitted back then that I had simply not done an assignment well. Maybe I just needed a better pen.
I heard the examples of what my peers had written for the same assignment I had done. After hearing their papers read aloud, or having read them myself, I would come away thinking, “Where did they learn to write like that?” I knew I had been in the same classes with most of them earlier. Where had I been when they learned to write so well?
For one writing assignment in my high school Advanced Placement English class, we were told to choose a current song we liked and explain what it was about. I already knew by then that my being in this class was a total mistake. Being here assumes that you already have the basic and even more advanced writing skills mastered. That would be the “advanced” part of the course title. Somehow, the people at that particular switch must have fallen asleep, allowing me into this class with no real writing skills. That was never more apparent than with this particular assignment.
My teacher told us about the assignment and read us a sample paper from an earlier class. My teacher raved about this paper as one of the best he had seen in any class he had ever taught. I think I knew before he started that it had been written by my brother.
For this paper, my brother had chosen “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” by The Beatles.
“Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
Why don’t we do it in the road?
No one will be watching us
Why don’t we do it in the road?”
And repeat. . . And repeat, and done.
I have to admit it was a really good paper. And it may have been a really good example of what this teacher wanted. For me, it made achieving success in this assignment particularly unattainable. For one thing, I did not have his talent. And also, for all the praise my teacher gave my brother for this gold medal moment in his teaching career, I knew the truth.
My brother had not chosen the song because he knew he could nail the assignment with his interpretation of the deeper meaning of one of the Beatles’ shorter song ventures. My brother chose that particular song because it was so short. It mattered that it was short because he had waited until the last possible day to even think about doing this paper. He did have a bit of talent to turn what, for me, would have been a disastrous failure into a victory.
My teacher did not know this, though. He presented this example as if my brother had spent long hours on multiple days getting everything just right. In reality, it had taken him less than half an hour to create this masterpiece of high school writing. I worked on my paper for an interminable amount of time, and still barely passed. I envied my brother’s creative ability to some extent. But I knew I had creative abilities in other ways that he could never touch back then, or even more recently.
And now that I am in somewhat a forced retirement, I am taking writing a bit more seriously and I find that I enjoy it. I like that I can create something out of a blank page and an idea. I like that it can be about any subject that interests me. And I like it even more that it will not be graded by my old Advanced Placement English teacher. Thanks for trying, Mr. Thomas.
Memory is the Key 