Babysitting the Bad Boy

Chapter 11

Frebruary break flew by. I hung out with Maya, did homework, and watched Clara. A lot of people reached out to me over social media, most of them telling me that they believed me about the information that had been released right before break, and apologizing for never doing anything before when we were in middle school. It really helped brighten my mood.

When we got back to school from break, countless people were saying hi to me in the hallways and talking to me in my classes. It was different; but a good different. 

It was the morning we walked into our history class when things changed.

"Good morning friends, please take your seats." Mr. Collins said as he walked in.

"Alright. So. You guys don't have much longer until the end of the year. You are all juniors and things are going to start getting pretty crazy with college tours, applications, SAT's, ACT's and things of that matter. So, I have an assignment for you all." He said with a smile as he pulled out a large cardboard box and plopped it on his desk.

"This will be a video project. You will be in groups and yes, I will let you pick your groups," he said when an excited murmuring broke out, "This will be due to me the day your final is scheduled, it will act in place of your final test." He said.

Someone raised their hand, "What is the video about?"

He smiled, "You." At our confusion, he elaborated, "I want you to keep some kind of log about your adventures for the second half of your junior year. I want to see the ups, and the downs. The exciting stuff and the boring stuff. You can format it however you want.

"Video diaries, a full-length documentary, you can even post things on Youtube in the form of daily vlogs. You have complete creative control, but you have to show the viewers something personal." He said.

"So is it about what it's like to be a junior in high school?" Someone asked.

"It can be about anything. It can be about that, or what it's like for a student athlete, or the drama department, or someone who only comes to school because they have to. You can focus on school activities or what you do outside of school on the weekends and vacations. You have complete creative control." He said.

Cole raised his hand, confused, "I'm sorry but what does this have to do with Ancient History?" He asked.

"Well in these videos you wil be making history." Mr. Collins supplied.

"But how?" Maya spoke up this time.

"You will be recording someone's life. You'll be recording someone's personal history." Mr. Collins stated simply, smiling eargerly as if he knew what question woujld be asked next.

"Whose history?" Sydney McAllister asked from the front of the room.

The smile on his face told me that was the question Mr. Collins had hoped would be asked, "Yours." He said simply.

I smiled to myself as he started explaining the logistics, "I'm not going to put a limit on the number of people in your group but the catch is that each person has to contribute throuhgout the entire project. You can have designated people to do certain jobs like camera man, actors an/or subjects, editors, directors, producers, whatever you want.

"So today I will let you get in your groups and plan out what you want for the video, but after today you are on your own and doing this outside of school. You have extreme amounts of time to get this done so I don't want to hear that you didn't have enough time when June rolls around. I've talked with Mrs. Morrison and she has said that you are all welcome to use her editing software on the computers for the broadcast program as long as you notify her in advance so she can sign out the computer. Good luck, I'm excited to see what you all come up with." He said before gesturing for us to get in our groups.