It wasn’t my first “F,” and certainly wouldn’t be my last, but it was the first and only “F” I’d ever received on a writing assignment. I remember indignity. Even at 16, the one true thing I knew about myself was that I loved writing and that I was pretty decent at it, relative to my inexperience. Maybe being the youngest student assigned to a section editor role on the school newspaper that semester had inflated my sense of goldeness.
Mr. Arnhold recentered reality for me. I had to stay after school to discuss my failing essay. Here is the ghost of our conversation:
“I don’t understand. I made my argument, and I made it well.”
“But you didn’t follow the five-paragraph essay structure.”
“What does it matter if I got my point across? There’s more than one way to do things. It’s too rigid and it stifles my poetic license. My creativity is being stymied! (.. and other petulant adolescent excuses).
“You missed the objective of the assignment. Look, you might be the best writer in the class, but what does that matter if you’re not the best writer to yourself? What does that matter if you can’t follow instructions?
He mentioned that following instructions was the barest of requirements for success. He told me this was the formula for the college essays I would be expected to write — that if I ever wanted to grow beyond a four-year degree, the essay format would serve as the foundation for the research papers I would write and that they were structured this way for a reason. He told me that if my audience wanted a thesis statement, topic sentences, supporting sentences and two concrete details, I better give them exactly that. It was a thoroughly instructive dressing-down. But he wasn’t nearly done:
“Listen, there is a right way to take this and I hope that you do: You’re not fooling me. This chicanery may have fooled other teachers, but I know this wasn’t your best effort. I’m not grading you against your classmates. I’m grading you against yourself. I know you can do better.’
I was shocked into stillness. I had never had bullshit called upon me. No one had ever dared me to be better than I was before. No one had ever taught me not to compare myself to others. On the precipice of seventeen, every new experience was monumental and melodramatic, but still, in that moment, I knew his words had instantly altered my ethos forever. And then he really changed my world when he added:
“I will help you.”
That was the moment that Mr. Arnhold became one of my favorite teachers and a model I would call upon when I taught writing. Most of the time, my adult learners were eager and amenable in the face of the academic essay, even if it caused them discomfort practicing thesis statements again and again (and often with timers for my test-prep classes). Occasionally, a student, usually 19-years old, would argue that they had their own way of doing things. I responded with a smile that bewildered them while I laughed at my own private irony and said, “I will help you.”
In my senior year, Mr. Arnhold mystified me when he was a clinician on the one-act play I was in. After rehearsal, he went over his notes but had none for me. When I asked him what I could work on, he said, “When you are truly good at something, you don’t need anyone else to tell you so.” He could have meant that in two different ways and he said it in such a way that I never really puzzled together which way he intended. (It wasn’t a very good play). But whether needing validation at that age was an indication of my need to improve, it doesn’t matter to me now. His words have become mine.
Gerund Girl Name 