Page 12 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
Those cursed emails.
I’d been so fixated on what I’d written to Julius that I’d forgotten about the other recipients. Recipients like my English teacher.
“Before we begin diving into the wonderful world of literature today,” she says, setting her briefcase down on the desk with a somewhat violent thump, “I would like to make a general announcement thatif, for some reason, you take issue with a grade that I have given you in the past, you can discuss it with me in acivil manner.” Her gaze snaps back to me, and I wish more than anything that a sinkhole would open up and swallow me whole.
“I would also like to emphasize that I have been in this teaching business far longer than you have been students,” she continues. “While English may be more subjective an area of study than others, we nonetheless grade you based on a strict rubric. The score that you receive in the end is far from random; if you believe that you deserve better, then perform better. Do I make myself clear?”
Slow nods from around the classroom. Behind me, I hear someone whisper, “Damn, who pissedheroff this morning?”
“Probably the same person who’s been pissing everyone off.”
There’s a pause, and my mind automatically fills up the silence with a vivid mental image of them gesturing at me. All the blood in my body seems to be concentrated in my ears and cheeks.
I press my hands to my burning face, lower the brightness of my screen as far down as it’ll go, and pull up the sent folder in my emails. Then I force myself to read through the entire chain between me and Ms. Johnson, starting with my original email. I remember spending an hour composing it, switching synonyms around to sound as friendly as possible, and proofreading it so many times my eyes began to water.
Dear Ms. Johnson,
I hope this finds you well! I was just curious when our scores for our text analysis paper will be released? I recall you saying that they would be marked by last Thursday, but it’s been a week and I don’t seem to have received anything yet. Of course, I totally understand if they aren’t ready because of how busy you are, and I definitely don’t mean to rush you—I only wanted to double-check in case I might have missed them!
Thank you so much for all your time, and sorry for any inconvenience!
Kind regards,
Sadie Wen
I’d then held my breath and waited. Her reply had come two days later:
your score is 89.5%
Sent from my iPhone
With each new line I read, I can feel the past rushing back to me, my frustration made fresh again, the scab picked open. It was a terrible score by my standards, just barely above mediocre. Worse, I’d known that Julius had received a 95 percent, becausehisEnglish teacher was a more lenient marker, and the difference between us was significant. Inexcusable. Unbearable. We didn’t even have the same letter grade. So I had done my best to bargain.
Dear Ms. Johnson,
Thank you so very much for letting me know—I truly appreciate it! Would it be possible in any way to round my score up to a 90 percent, given that right now it’s only off by 0.5 percent? Or perhaps there’s a chance for me to do a make-up paper or extra credit? Please let me know, as this grade—and your class—is incredibly important to me. I would be happy to do anything to change this.
Kind regards,
Sadie Wen
To which she’d said only:
No. All grades are final.
And really, it should’ve stopped there. That should have been the last of our exchange. I’d poured out my humiliation and anger into a late-night draft and moved on.
Until now.
I wince my way through the latest email, the heat in my face expanding.
Ms. Johnson,
I’ve gone back and read through the essay I submitted, and I must say I disagree with the final mark. Even if it’s not worth full marks, it should at least be worth the 90 percent. It doesn’t cost you anything to round the score up, but it costs me everything to leave it the way it currently is. Just 0.5 percent. Zero. Point. Five. Percent. How unreasonable do you have to be to deny a student even that? It’s basic math. As you might know, I’m currently applying to Berkeley, which has literally been my dream school since I was a child. My grades are more important than ever, and that letter grade could change my entire average, which could be the difference between an acceptance and a rejection.
This isn’t the first time I haven’t been able to completely make sense of your marking guidelines either. The model essay you showed us in class wasn’t even that good—every time it referenced a quote, it quite literally said, “This is a quote from the text.” It also began every second sentence with the word “significantly,” which, in my opinion, really detracts from the actual significance of the statement . . .
Two weeks ago, months after I drafted that response, I found out Ms. Johnson was the one who wrote all the model essays she handed out to us.
