(I am in fifth grade, and I’ve always loved writing fiction stories. My teacher presents us with two projects: First, we have to write a realistic fiction story for language arts, and second, we have to give a report on the Holocaust for social studies. I go up to the teacher and ask if I can write a story for the social studies project, rather than do a report, and she says yes. I am ecstatic, as a report sounds like a lot of boring, pointless work. About a month later, we turn in both projects. The following occurs as I hand in my Holocaust story:)
Teacher: “[My Name], this isn’t the report I asked for. You didn’t do the work?”
Me: “Um… you said I could write a story instead of the report.”
Teacher: “No, I never said that. When did that happen?”
Me: “Th-the day you told us about the project, I asked if I could write a story instead, and you said yes.”
Teacher: “No, I said you could write a story about the Holocaust for your realistic fiction story. You still had to do the report.”
Me: “Oh.”
(I am feeling extremely nervous, as I am very shy, and I am terrified I am going to fail the project.)
Teacher: “All right, just sit down for now.”
(The rest of class seems to go by smoothly, allowing me to forget the incident ever occurred, until…)
Teacher: “[My Name], come up here for a second.”
(I go up to her desk.)
Teacher: “I read through the story. Are you sure you wrote it?”
Me: “Yes?”
Teacher: “This work doesn’t look like a fifth-grader’s writing. Are you sure you didn’t copy it from somewhere?”
Me: “No! I wrote all of it. I didn’t copy or anything.”
Teacher: “Okay, because if you did, that’s plagiarism. You can get in huge trouble for that.”
Me: “I know. I didn’t copy anything.”
Teacher: “Well…” *she flips through it a bit* “This is really amazing writing. I know you weren’t supposed to write a story, but I’ll accept it this time. Just know you have to be more careful next year in middle school, since the teachers there won’t do something like this, understand?”
Me: “Okay.”
(I managed not to fail the project, but had to write an essay with the other kids who didn’t do the report about why I didn’t do it and such. I found it completely pointless and never actually turned it in. The kicker? The next year, in sixth grade, I turned in a short story instead of a science report and received an A for creativity.)
