Animal Nature

When I was in junior high, I thought of myself as a writer. I assumed then that I would be a world-famous novelist long before I attained my current number of years. I loved to write. It didn't matter what kind of writing, either: I enjoyed writing papers as much as stories; I found joy in creating outlines, essays, and poems. I wasn't much of a student, as I only did the work that interested me, but what I deigned to do I did to the best of my ability.

My junior high English teacher set us a writing prompt: choose the animal you would most like to be and explain why. After some consideration, I concluded that there was no form in the animal kingdom that I preferred to the one I fortunately already possessed. I wrote something to that effect. I do not know the whereabouts of my original composition, or if it even still exists; it would be interesting to go over it again now. I believe I praised human intellect. I reveled in our inventions. I exalted in our power to change the form of the world around us. I may have mentioned language. How, as a tiger or an eagle or a llama, would I even know that I was happier if I didn't know the word happier?

When I received my paper back, it had been marked with an F. This was justified by the claim that I had not followed the assignment. I should have complained. I should have involved my parents and/or administration. I was a quiet, timid child; I never said a word about it to anyone. Inside I seethed.

My response clearly wasn't along the lines my teacher had in mind, but I never figured out exactly what she objected to about it. Did she not consider the human animal to be an animal (we're hardly vegetable or mineral)?

Perhaps she thought my answer showed a lack of imagination. On the contrary, I had imagined myself as a number of animals during the composition process and found the notion of becoming any of these creatures absolutely unbearable. I should have written why I didn't want to be a lion, why I didn't want to be an eagle, in place of why I wanted to be a man.

I was given an F because I failed to produce what was expected, despite the fact that I had produced that which had been requested. I wonder if she asked more clearly for what she wanted from the next group of students given the assignment, if she learned that it fell to her to craft a prompt that could produce the result she wanted. I wonder what I was supposed to learn. That the things I love, believe in, and desire are wrong? Not to be so foolish as to answer a question honestly? To answer only what the asker desires to hear?