Write & Wrong

Bobbie was excited.  He had jumped into the assignment knowing full well that his was going to be the best report his teacher had ever read.  His notion of time travel, although it had never been proven, was an amazing combination of engineering, physics and a splash of genius.  Bobbie didn’t venture into anything without first examining all facets, every angle and possible points of failure.  He had been working on this idea for most of the summer, and when this assignment came up, he saw this as a perfect opportunity to present it to an adult.  He couldn’t wait to read her comments and get her feedback on his amazing idea. 

Bob watched as Mrs. Edmonds made her way around the room, handing back the assignments.  He was surprised she had not already mentioned his paper to the class, telling them what an amazing piece of work it was.  Considering it had taken her two days to grade all of the assignments, maybe she had been in contact with NASA about his time travel proposal, and that’s what had taken so long.

As she reached his desk and slid his report from the top of the stack, Bobbie couldn’t help but notice all the red marks.  His entire report was covered in red.  Misspelled words were circled; punctuation marks were added in places and removed in others.  Some sentences were completely drawn through with comments written along the margin of the page.  Had she not understood?  Did she ever look past his grammar to see his idea?  Bobbie’s heart sank, as he slid back into his chair, completely deflated.  He dropped his report onto his desk and just stared at the C- on the top of the page.

Bob wasn't really paying attention to what was being said in the classroom.  His thoughts were of finding a teacher who taught science instead of English.  That's where he must have gone wrong.  The bell sounded the end of class, and as everyone filed out, Bob didn't even look at Mrs. Edmonds, but was already questioning his thought process.  If he had made such an obvious blunder like this, what else had he messed up on?  Maybe it was a good thing she hadn't contacted NASA just yet.

END