The Writer At Work
             Creating Confidence in a General English Class
             Scene: A general English classroom. Grade 10. The room, a traditional classroom with yellow lighting that makes it feel like a health clinic, is full of students who would rather be at lunch. Half of them are nodding off and the other half are forcing themselves to keep their heads up. The teacher, a short thin red-headed woman about the age of 50, wearing large glasses with thick black frames, is telling her students, with an intimidating but encouraging voice, the scope and requirements of their final project on Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar.
             Mrs. R: It can be on anything, as long as you show your creativity and remain respectful to your fellow group members.
             And so, she divides the students up into groups of five and lets them begin...
             I was one of the students in that classroom-nodding off, half listening, and bored. In high school, because I did want to graduate with a decent academic record, I completed all my work, getting by with the least amount of effort and interest. When Mrs. R assigned our final project, the creativity and large scope of the assignment sparked my interest. It represented the first time in my school career that I was asked to express my individuality outside of the expected processes that follow a very linguistic method-I didn't have to write an essay, a response, a report, or a summary-I could use whatever instruments I felt necessary and effective.
             Like the rest of the class, Mrs. R put me in a group with four other students, and I shyly suggested we create a news cast of the murder of Julius Ceasar-full with the reenactment of the murder, news anchors, field experts, interviews with the victims, and even commercials reflecting the time period, which focused on the invention of toi...