My eleventh-grade teacher, Mrs. Sorte, was a peach when you would see her outside of class. In class, you would see only the moldy, dying innards and a pit with no life. Her mood swings were like the weather. She would start out class in a great mood; sunny, joyful, and seemed like she was your best friend. Out of nowhere, this mood would change, and she would become a raging storm that was all about doom and gloom. It was her way or no way. If you needed help during this mood swing, you might get the help you would need if you caught her on the upside of it. If you caught her at the lowest point, you would be left with none of your questions answered. This was especially true when we had a writing assignment we would have to complete in class.

We had to finish anything were given in class, or we would get a zero on the assignment. If she required a rough draft, it had to be formatted a certain way so that she could annotate on the side. If you did not leave enough room for her to do this, you would get a zero on that portion of the assignment. If we had ideas scattered all over the page, we would get docked points because “it would not make sense to her.” She would sometimes make a person reformat their entire rough draft to fit what she wanted before full credit would be given.

For the brainstorming portion of our assignments, I had always had the idea that you should write your ideas out and it would not have to make sense, to a point. If you had your ideas in line and you could understand and remember what you were going for, that would be fine. Previous teachers I have had would ask us to make a list to make these ideas be organized, but they would not fret if you did not do this. Mrs. Sorte, on the other hand, would take this above and beyond what previous teachers had requested. Your ideas had to be in an order where “it would make sense” and “paint a picture” in her mind of where your story would go; even before you had any idea where it would or could go. From what I had understood up to this point about freewriting is that you could start writing and it would not have to make sense to begin with. As you would write, it would help “trigger” ideas so that you could lead to other ideas you may have already had. In contrast, in her class, if you turned anything in that was freewriting, she would not accept this portion of the assignment. Mrs. Sorte believed freewriting was “an incorrect way to express what you were really trying to write about.” I remember every student that did this would stop doing the assignment and give up on it.

When you were given the writing assignment, she would always give you a topic of some sort. I remember students would ask if we could get a new topic because they would know nothing about the assigned topic. Mrs. Sorte would always snap back with, “Well, you are about to learn more about the topic.” I remember everyone in my class “LOATHED [her] ENTIRELY!” like the Grinch loathed all the Who’s of Whoville. She would never budge on any kind of topic if students did not know much about it.

After the beginning of an essay was finished and you were turning in the first portion, she would always make comments as students were turning it in. “That’s it?”, or “You can do better than this.”, for teacher’s pets: “Nicely done! If only others could have done as much as you.” It seemed as if you were belittled for even trying to put something together in a short amount of time.

Looking back on all of this, I remember being petrified when it came to writing. Still to this day if I am asked to write anything that will be presented to an individual or group, I shut down. I always think of Mrs. Sorte’s criticism and how she would talk down to you. It makes me feel that what I write will never be good enough for somebody to read. I hope that one day, these things she said will mean nothing, and I will be able to work through it in confidence.