The 100 Page Nightmare

Gianni Patrone

Professor Baker

11/22/20

At one point, we all were assigned a crazy long essay. Back in high school, I hated it when I was forced to write a paper that was ten or more pages. Since I was not an enthusiastic writer, it took me longer to write essays and papers than most people. It was tricky to manage my time; even though the writing was not my biggest strength I was still able to get by. I thought a twelve-page paper was straight-up wrong and evil but boy I was sure wrong.

It all happened during my sophomore year of high school. My English teacher, Mrs. Kennedy assigned our class the most ridiculous project that I ever heard of. We had to write a 100-page biography on someone. Mrs. Kennedy was a sweet old lady, but I do not know what she was thinking. The entire class was silent, and we just stared at her completely bewildered. We did have a few months to complete this project, but it was one of the biggest challenges that I faced. Having to interview someone and write a paper on their life story is not your average everyday assignment. My teacher gave us a packet with all the requirements for the paper.

The first choice I had to make was to decide who I should interview. Since this project was going to be a never-ending project, I decided to interview my mom. I felt that interviewing my mom was a good choice because we both live in the same house. Whenever I needed to ask a question, I did not have to go out of my way to ask her. Some of the topics that I interviewed my mom on included her childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and her personal experiences. The hardest part of the project was managing my time and writing the biography. I got headaches every day and I started to feel overwhelmed.

Even though this project was extremely stressful because of the workload, in a way, I learned a lot about my mom and my family. I had fun interviewing my mom and learning about her life growing up in South Philadelphia. I learned about how different things were when my mom was my age. Life was much harder because she lost her dad at a young age. It was interesting learning about my grandfather because I never met him. This writing assignment act brought me closer to my mother. We had an opportunity to have a dialogue and I learned about her accomplishments and her hardships. This never-ending writing assignment which I dreaded so much actually was a unique and special opportunity that changed my view on writing assignments. I learned not to dread long assignments; you never know how life-changing it can be. Mrs. Kennedy helped us compile our writings into a book. She was kind enough to help us bind our books to keep. I gave one to my mother for Mother’s Day, and I have one too. The dreaded writing assignment turned into a meaningful opportunity to connect and bond more with my mother.