Flipped

Chapter 7- Blue, Red, and Blue

Sam

Day 10 of my imprisonment in the torturous world of high school. The other prisoners remain ignorant of the fact that I am not like them (but to be fair, they are ignorant of many things. Like the sheer volume of their own stupidity). Still not sure if I will make it out alive, but I will say this for myself: I am surviving.

I end my required journal entry with a harsh period, nearly stabbing my pencil through the paper. Yeah, I'm surviving. Barely.

When I look up from my journal, the rest of the class is still writing. Not wanting to make a show of being the first one done, I spend a few minutes doodling in the corner of my paper.

Creative writing is my favorite class of the day for the same reason that art is Rose's. I love writing like she loves to draw. Not only that, but I'm great at it. I've dazzled teachers with it, and even won awards for it. I just love to write. So naturally, when I was making out my schedule at the beginning of the year and saw that this school had an actual creative writing class, I jumped at the chance to sign up for it.

Little did I know that Mr. Morton would want us to journal. I despise writing about my life, which is full of nothing but angst and misery. 

Oh well. At least our first unit is poetry, my all-time favorite form of writing.

"Okay everyone, pencils down," Morton announces when our ten minutes are up. "Please pass your journals forward."

I press down the cover of mine tightly when I close it, as if that would prevent anyone else from opening it. Morton promised on the first day of school that he would not read our journals, but that didn't stop me from being paranoid.

"Alright now," Morton starts, taking a seat in his chair at the front of the room. "What should our topic be today?"

Another thing about Morton: he's big on class participation.

Much more than the class is, judging by the resounding silence in response to his question. This could also be blamed on the fact that it is only the second week of school, and many aren't yet comfortable with speaking aloud in class. Least of all me.

"Come on, guys," Mr. Morton prompts us eagerly. "Don't make me do all the work for you."

The way his class works is like this: each month we focus on a different type of writing, while still being sure to work on skills developed in past units. But no matter what unit we're on, he insists that class work on Thursdays be "student inspired prompts". The whole "maybe if I give my students a shred of autonomy they'll participate more" approach.

So far, it doesn't seem to be working.

As Morton waits quietly for someone to volunteer a suggestion (yeah, he's one of those teachers), I find myself fighting the urge to raise my own hand. There are so many prompts I'd like to suggest. Non-boring prompts that I could write pages and pages about. And I would gladly suggest one, except that when it comes to classroom settings, I'm about as talkative as Rose. I don't think I've raised my hand to answer a question in five years.

"Anyone?" Morton urges.

How about feeling trapped. Or wishing more than anything that you could be someone else? Or–

"Yes, Cody?" Morton says, pointing to a skinny, curly haired boy at the front of the room whose name I didn't know until this moment. "What should we write about today?"