u/Gillybby11

So, I'm well into my 30s but occasionally I have this memory of an English assignment we did in Highschool, and I want to know if my confusion is justified or if maybe I just haven't realised what went wrong.

It was back in the good old days of 2007, we were all about 17 and were focusing on narrative themes, interpretations of text, symbolism/metaphors etc. The lovely area of "Why do you think the author said the curtains were blue?" kinda stuff. We were told that we would be sitting an in-class Assignment, that we would be played a song and we would need to write a narrative interpretation of said song. We would be marked on our originality of our narrative, as well as our ability to interpret different themes and symbolism used in the song.

We go in on the day, and we're given an hour in total. We were played the song twice, and given the lyrics to work off of.

The song was Summer Lovin, from the musical Grease.

I was one of the top English students in the grade, and I have this vivid memory of staring at the lyrics sheet thinking "What the fuck am I supposed to do with \this?!" And I, along with apparently the *entire grade*, just threw in the towel after panicking for 15 minutes and wrote down the Summer Lovin narrative.

We stood at assembly a few days later whole the English department Head stood there and berated us, how he expected more, that no one wrote anything original and that they were all incredibly disappointed in our performance. I'm not exaggerating when I say that *literally the entire grade failed*. They had to toss out the assignment and figure out a different way to make up the gradings.

I'm wondering if the English departments upset with us was warranted, I've wondered ever since it happened. I've had a lot of clarity in my years since I graduated, but this event still nags at me, because I still hear that song occasionally and wonder "What DID they expect us to do with that?".

So, in your academic opinion- who failed who here?

Long story short, about 20 years ago my entire grade flunked a single shared English assignment and every now and again, thinking about it bothers me because I still can't figure out what they expected of us.

I guess I'm looking for professors/teachers or just well versed people who specialise in English, not so much the language but like media interpretation, symbolism, metaphors, those fun years where you had to figure out why the Author/director made the curtains Blue.

Which subreddit would be best for this?