Sometimes in my thought meandering, I think back to some of my old high school days. Of course, these days were many many years ago and therefore, not all the memories are completely clear. However, I have very specific memories of Mrs. Collins’ English classes. I abhorred them for a couple of reasons: 1. I was a lazy high school student 2. I didn’t think I was really learning anything and 3. I was a bit of a snot at times. I remember sitting in class as Mrs. Collins gave us assignments day after day. (I, quite often, had to sit in the front row because I talked too much) Poor Mrs. Collins tried her best to teach us correct sentence and paragraph structure as we laughed and joked and made fun of her behind her back. She was mostly patient but would sometimes come completely unglued. Occasionally, she assigned the writing of 100 sentences if one of us really got her goat. Still, being a good teacher, she would give us our assignments. I remember that she would tell us that we would need to turn in 4 to 5 drafts or more. I was pretty sure she was talking about others in the class as I, being so fabulous, would be able to slam out a completely fantastic paragraph on my first try. I had already been in journalism class for a year so it should be pretty easy for me. I knew quite a bit about good writing. I had already learned about rough drafts from journalism. However, I never could get used to the idea of a rough draft. I always just wanted to turn in one draft and consider it final.
In retrospect, I should have paid closer attention in Mrs. C’s class. I still struggle sometimes. When do I use a colon and when do I use a semi-colon? When is a comma more appropriate? I can only say, “thank god for spell check” on today’s computers! I think again and again to the shock I registered when I would get a draft back from Mrs. Collins and it was dripping with red ink. More red ink, in fact, than black ink. I, again, would re-write and turn in the next draft believing it was perfect or good enough to fool Mrs. C. Several draft-returns later and a few under-my-breath expletives, I would manage a passing grade. Soon, the next assignment would come and again, I would put pen to paper and believe that I could slam out a nearly perfect assignment with only one draft. I think it took me my whole senior year to realize that Mrs. Collins was never fooled by my half-hearted attempts. In fact, she knew all along how little effort I was actually putting in. I think of Mrs. C now quite often and wonder if she would grade me on poor sentence structure or slash me for fragmented thoughts. The moral of the story is this: No matter how perfect we think we are, our lives are mostly just a series of “rough drafts”. We need to keep trying day after day in our personal lives and in our communities. We may shed some tears of frustration but as we keep making attempts at perfection, sooner or later, our ‘assignments’ will make the the grade and maybe even get a smiley face.
