This feeling was not at all illogical, for from the first few days of school there were already a some signs that the teacher would not give me a very good mark. The first being the teacher giving a lot of creative assignments and oral presentations, and the second being the teacher being rigid and close-minded.
Oral Presentation
On the third day of school, she was already telling us about a 15-minute long presentation which we would have to do, and I know that we'll have at least another two or three of them. As I am horrible at oral presentations, these presentations will probably severely pull my mark down .
Creative Writings
Then, on the fourth day, we began to do creative writings, such as 6-word memoirs and some sort of exaggerated sentences. For the six-word memoirs, we basically had to write (powerful) memoirs that contained only six words, such as "I've already turned into my mother"; as for the exaggerated sentences, we had to write sentences like "school was over before it had even begun" or "her heart was broken before he said the truth."
These creative writings are extremely scary, because you'd never know how she will mark them. And, I bet she wouldn't just give away perfect marks, but will instead give 4/5 (or even 3/5) to most people. Also, we're to do these exercises twice every week, so I would think that they are worth quite a lot of marks.
Close-Mindedness
As for she being rigid and close-minded, I think it'll be proven by the incident that I am about to describe.
On the fourth day of school, she asked the class for the differences between a memoir and an autobiography. Some people said that autobiographies were more likely to be about one's whole life (whereas memoirs could be about one particular period of time), and some others said that autobiographies were more factual and memoirs could be more personal.
She rejected all the answers: each time a person said something, she replied "I'm looking for something else." Then, after rejecting about seven answers, she finally said her ideal answer: that autobiographies were more factual, and that memoirs could be (slightly) more fictional.
Wasn't her answer very similar to some of my classmates' answers? If she was so rigid that a slight change in the wording could be considered as "incorrect," then she's probably one of those teachers who would give horrible marks to whoever whose ideas (or styles) differ from her. She probably only has one version of "good writing," and on tests she would probably only accepts interpretations of texts that are identical to hers!
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Arrg! I hope all of these bad feelings are wrong!
