The Story by Julian N, 713

Leo hated Sunday School. He hated the teachers. He hated the bullies. Most of all, he hated ELA. He wanted to get out of that place. One day, he got an idea.” There’s a story project at school that is worth 40% of our grade. If I fail it, I’ll flunk out!” So for the story project, he wrote, ”A man was born. He lived and he died. The end.” When his teacher read it, instead of failing him, the teacher said, ”Redo it, and this time, take it seriously.” 

When Leo got it back, he was disappointed about how his plans didn’t work. He thought, ”Maybe I should just write a boring unoriginal story about math.” And he did just that. He wrote a boring fictional story about math with no characters that never got to the point.  When his teacher got the revisions back, she said, ”When I said ‘take it seriously,’ I didn’t mean to write a totally boring story with no plot and no hook! I know what you are doing. You are trying to fail ELA. I know; this isn’t the first time somebody’s done it. Your mom and I are seriously going to have to have a chat about this.” Leo got scared. His mom had to be the strictest person on Earth.

When Leo got back from Sunday School, he approached by his mom, who sat him down to talk. “You want to be a football player, right?” she asked. “Well, guess what? If you fail ELA, you may not get into a good college, which may have a football team with a coach who may whip you if you don’t win. Or even worse- a school with no football team at all!” Leo was shocked. No football? He took those words to heart, and when he handed in his final copy of his story, he got a 95. From then on, he made sure he got high grades in all of his classes, and even became star quarterback in college.