"The Miss Dennis School of Writing" R

The Alice Steinbach School of Bootlicking.

Recently I read an article about my former teacher, Miss Dennis, written by my former classmate, Alice Steinbach. The entire entire article talked about how Miss Dennis helped Alice with her writing and how influential she was. It’s surprising that still, even after Miss Dennis’ passing, how much Alice continues to suck up to her!

All Alice ever did in that class was flatter Miss Dennis in order to make the rest of us look bad. I can’t believe she even mentioned me in the article! “...Dorothy hadn’t paid attention and her writing showed it.” Oh yeah, I didn’t pay attention? Well I’m sorry if I got tired of listening to Alice blab on and on about how much she loved this author, or about how she just found this delightful book Miss Dennis just had to read. I don’t even understand how that could affect my writing! Alice was the attention hog, and Miss Dennis just kept feeding her all the oats and the attention she wanted.

I honestly thought that Miss Dennis would’ve seen what was happening, especially when Alice stayed after pretty much every day just to talk to her. Alice always gave Miss Dennis complements (especially about her “apricot hair”), and she always wanted to talk to Miss Dennis after school. I felt bad for Miss Dennis! She never got to leave school on time, and Alice would just talk and talk and talk. Alice would always be an angel in front of Miss Dennis, but once Miss Dennis left the room Alice would rub in all of our faces their “special relationship”.

I didn’t get the chance to enjoy my class experience with Miss Dennis because Alice never let her focus on anyone else. I really do wish I could’ve had the same experience Alice had with Miss Dennis. Well, except for all of the sucking up of course.

Steinbach, Alice. "The Miss Dennis School of Writing." The Norton Sampler. 6th. New York, NY: Norton & Company, 2003. Print.