In language class, all you write are things limited and restricted to these ways to do things, and it does get annoying at times because generally I think too much on the stuff that I have to force into it, than the actual writing itself. I would love it if one assignment was a "Free Writing" and you just type up a story, spell check it, grammar check it, give it a creative appearance, and get graded on the quality of the work, and the useage of words and phrases. It'd be just so much more fun, rather than "Read this. Write this, this way, no exceptions." It kills the creativity.

Yes! For the love of God, yes!

Last year, my teacher pretty much loved me so she let me write whatever I wanted pretty much whenever. There was a story (or "essay") I wrote for the final that was about the distant future, the year 2000. It had a dystopian world government that harvested the morbidly obese for fuel, and there was one fat man out to stop them- Oilic Manlio. (He lived in seclusion deep in the Arizonan jungles.) Mr. Manlio had accumulated so much energy in his fat cells that he was capable of self-destructing, which would cause an explosion as powerful as a supernova, and he used this power to force the World Government to end their evil ways or risk the destruction of the solar system.

I got an A+ on that.

This year it's all "analyze this character" and "apply some ridiculous symbolism to that..." Where's the heart?

Social Studies, perhaps have an assignment where you have to write up a historically accurate story based around an era of time? Like a story of the battles during the Civil War, or Revolutionary War. Or, just in general allow the students to design their own project, but in order to design the project it'd have to fit with the current area of learning, and display creativity as well as effort, along with correct facts. It'd be fun.

We did a fictional Civil War journal last year. Mine involved a soldier's expedition across America to defeat the rebellion and to establish a steam-powered berry-picking system for Smugster's Jelly Farms back home.

Art, I'd say allow more free draw periods, and not just several hundred projects where you have to draw a certain item. Like, learn a technique, but draw your own drawing and add the newly learned technique into the picture, rather than doodling boring things.

We had a lot of that, too...

...Dang, I had good classes last year.

I've never had any of that. I was writing up a story last year in Language and got my note book taken away. However, what I wrote ended up counting as extra credit in the end, and so it was all good. I wasn't allowed to free write in the middle of class from that point on.

And for a fictional story like what you did for SS, I'd absolutely love that, I'd actually do the work XP

There should be a "Hey, you, make me a sammich" class.

Hey, you, make me a sammich. Now!

~EW~

I've been thinking the same thing since first grade.

My teacher honestly thinks she can get a good sample of our writing style and skill from stupid constraining projects. SHE CAN NOT. And she just gave a mystery assignment, and we were all like "YES, FINALLY SOMETHING CREATIVE" but it could only be four pages double spaced.

Although, I hate designing labs in science. Too much dang work.

Welcome to free thinking.

Try to ignore that part of you when you're in Literature class, the teachers don't appreciate it.

I definately agree with you, Spink.

In English, my teacher believes that fiction itself is too difficult for Freshmen to write well. Therefore, we are relegated to multiple essays at a time instead of anything creative. >.<

Art, I agree. If I have to draw one more spherical object, I'm gonna scream!

History is pretty nice this year. All our projects have a modicum of creativity to them and I can use that to apply my own...twisted touches. Don't even ask about the Oregon Trail Diary....