Abbey Schimpf- Most Difficult Assignment

My most difficult assignment was a group assignment in my freshman Honors English class in high school. It was assigned after we read Spoon River Anthology, which is a collection of short poetry. The book introduces a new character on each page, and they are all somehow connected in a small way. This was a group project, but the catch was that one group was an entire class. Each group (class) got a wall of the classroom, and we had to arrange a visual display that showed the connection between all of the characters in Spoon River. The project was a competition among all the classes, and outside teachers came in as the judges to pick the display that best connected the characters in the clearest way.

Our teacher actually introduced the project by telling us it would be our least favorite thing about high school. He assigned about six characters to each student, and we had to fill out fill out evaluations on them to show their relationships to other characters. Then he told us all to work together to create a display to connect all of them. He was very vague because he wanted us to be creative, but also because he loved watching how bewildered we got.

The project was difficult for a number of reasons. I think the worst part was that the entire class of twenty-some fifteen year olds had to work together to make a project that displayed one, cohesive idea. I think that typically, most of the people in high school honors courses are very into their grades, which makes them strong willed. Plus, many of the kids in my class were natural leaders, and adding those two characteristics together creates a recipe for disaster when there are over twenty people like that who are expected to work together. 

I was really quiet as a Freshman, so for this project I was one of the students that went along with what the majority wanted to do. Our class as a whole could not come to a consensus, so our project was all over the place. I remember that I just helped with the little things so I could avoid controversy and complaints.

The experience of that project was obviously traumatic enough that I still remember it four years later, but I honestly think that was the point. My teacher loved this project because it encouraged competition between the classes. The grading scale was based on the ratings that the judges gave, and everyone in the class got the exact same grade, no matter how much work they did for the project. Each class tried to work together to get the best grade, but gave up at a certain point when it was too hard to come to a group consensus. It taught us that compromise was what’s important, but it’s typically pretty hard to obtain.