Remaining Civil In Civics

(I am in my Civics class. I am working on an essay to be presented in class, in pairs, and I am paired up with Classmate #1, who has just gotten back from suspension. I am also a student that takes Speech and Drama as a class.)

Classmate #1: “We should just copy it straight out of the book, and use the way it’s worded.”

Me: “No, what we need to do is flesh it out. Technically we could just BS it, but it will look better if we use a more elaborate way of wording it. I can stretch the first sentence and use it for the entire introductory paragraph. Your way won’t work, just because of the fact that Coach [Teacher] would fail both of us and you would miss out of a track meet, and we would both get detention.”

Classmate #1: “Coach [Teacher]!”

Teacher: “Yes, [Classmate #1]?”

Classmate #1: “I think [My Name] just called me stupid in a really smart way.”

Teacher: “That’s called a backhanded compliment. At least she didn’t do what she did to [Classmate #2] for screwing up their Power-Point.”