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The Most Significant Things I’ve Been Asked to Write
When I was in fifth grade, our entire graduating class was asked to write graduation speeches. Three kids out of a few hundred would be picked to read theirs during the ceremony. Not only was mine picked, but our school counselor called my father at work to tell him she had never seen a fifth-grader write so well.
So at ten years old, I stood up on graduation day in front of an audience of about 1000 people and read what I had written. I don’t recall being nervous. I altered between looking down at the speech to read it and looking up at the crowd. If I may say so myself, I nailed it. Afterward, my teacher told me I was “naturally gifted” and was going places with my writing.
In sixth grade, I joined the school newspaper. I showed up to school an hour early twice a week to write articles about subjects we were assigned or prompted to. One morning, I decided I was tired of writing the boring articles we were asked to and instead wrote one about my history teacher, who nobody including the other teachers liked.
I turned it in, returned to my seat and studied Ms. Geller’s reaction and body language as she read it to herself. She didn’t make it past the opening paragraph without bursting into laughter. I was asked to stay late to discuss what I had written. Though she clearly found it funny, I still thought…
