Author’s note: Where “The Antagonist” lives in the tension of burnout and resistance, this piece lives in the quiet reasons I don’t walk away. It’s about one day, one project, and one room full of students who reminded me what learning can be—for them and for me.
I was inspired to try this project at the beginning of the year when I started thinking about what research looks like outside of the classroom. Research isn’t just a paper. Research isn’t born as a document or email, typed alone in a dark room and emailed into a void. Research is conversation. It’s movement. It’s the spark that happens when ideas collide in a room full of people.
With this in mind, I decided change the Composition 2 Research Paper that has been my measuring stick for the past five years. I peeled off the numbers and checkpoints—marks of success— and worked to repurpose them, to shape them into something new, a research presentation.
I planned to control every part of it—the requirements, the rubric, the grading. I’d hand them the structure, the measuring stick in a new shape, but the same routine. I would be the ring leader and them the performers. That was the plan.
Then, in October, the plan changed. Shifting under the watchful eye of Da Vinci. A conference in his name held me captivated, the eyes of the Mona Lisa staring out from the panel of teachers, their words about un-grading, natural consequences, and transformative learning tracking my thoughts as they spiraled out around the room.
Step away from tradition? Pull back from a transactional exchange, long enough to reemerge transformed myself? It felt too wide—too chaotic—not for me. Not yet. I had too much to do. Essays, lectures, rubrics, numbers, reading, and on and on the list went. Not now. I drove home, promising to think about it later—to apply it later, but my brain buzzed, alight with new plans, things that felt welded into my teaching pedagogy suddenly loose. I wiggled everything—lost in all the what ifs until this project, this undefined research presentation sitting on my course calendar, pushed its way to the front—the painfully obvious solution to the problem my mind now needed a solution for.
What if, I thought, what if I don’t have to give them structure. What if I let them choose? What would they do if they had a choice? What would this project look like if they got to decide what it should be—and how they should be graded?
It felt like the middle ground between the Wild West of un-grading, the conference presenters its sheriffs, and the rigid factory line of traditional education, each cog and gear never out of place.
My hopes were quiet, my fears loud. I knew — knew — they would let me down. I knew I’d have to step in, to fix it, to create everything myself.
But then…learning happened. And it was mine.
I need a moment to be honest—I used AI. Ha! A year ago, that sentence would have stopped me cold. Use AI? Never! The death of my job. The downfall of humanity, and to be honest, it still might be, but I have learned. Learned that it can be powerful, but more than that, I can be powerful if I use it right, and so I did. I poured all of my thoughts, messy and scattered, into a text box, and through the power of what I am certain will come out as sorcery, it helped me create the framework and supporting documents. It helped me structure my ideas into something I could hand to students—non-negotiables like: “your project must connect to your semester topic, include research, and feature a visual element.”
Beyond that? Everything was open.
If my students could read minds, I think that morning would have scared them. I walked into class with something that could barely be called a plan, and I placed it before them with little more than a five minute lecture—my shortest one to date. I stopped talking and looked at them, a few stared back with wide eyes.
“What is this?”
“No, really — what do you want us to do?”
“Can we do this?”
And I said the most terrifying sentence a teacher can say: “I don’t know. It’s up to you.”
They blinked at me like I had my wires crossed—short-circuiting right in front of them, and as much as I wanted to cave, to say “Just kidding,” to take back the wheel, I just smiled and kept repeating “It’s up to you.” The phrase motivation for us both.
Something shifted. Somewhere between “You decide” and “What do I do?,” the uncertainty turned into discussion—genuine, insightful, surprising even. They talked about fairness and effort, what it means to grade and to be graded. They discussed expectations with not just themselves in mind but those around them. They never said the words pedagogy, equity, or teaching ethics, but that was the conversation they were engaged in. A conversation of their own making.
After twenty minutes, the room was fully alive. Five groups, fifteen sticky notes with scribbled thoughts, and several dry-erase markers turning into categories of all shapes and sizes covering the whiteboard. Up close, the notes seemed haphazard—like standalone desires made from individual student minds scattered around the room, but when we stepped back, suddenly pieces that felt detached and off point, formed coherent categories that complemented each other, building into something bigger than any of us expected.
They weren’t arguing for points. They were building meaning.
I watched them merge “effort” with “content” and “research.” I found myself asking questions, pushing them—throwing up roadblock to test their resolve—they didn’t falter. They kept going, kept refining.
They decided effort could be visible through engagement, which led to the creation of a required Q&A section after each presentation. The day could have ended right then—the sun blotted out, the clock turned over—I was amazed, I was satisfied. Then came the best part.
They asked, “What about students with anxiety?”
“What if no one has a question? Do we force one?”
They didn’t shrug it off.
They didn’t say, “Just deal with it.”
They talked about equity. About consideration. About what it means to create a fair system for everyone.
I have always believed in lifelong learning, but I don’t think I’ve learned this much about teaching—or myself—in years.
I’ve spent my career in classrooms, moving from my master’s program into my instructor role without ever stepping away. In the hours and days of teaching moments, things have shifted. Little parts of my courses adjusted, doing my best to meet my students where they are, but that day, it was like a fault line broke apart, revealing land that had never been traveled.
They taught me that when learning looks different, it isn’t lesser. When students are trusted to build the framework, the walls don’t collapse—they build something new, sturdy, and alive.
Despite all my preconceived notions—they wouldn’t be serious, they would look for the easy A, they wouldn’t care, there would only be a few voices—they proved me wrong, and being wrong has always been when I learn the most.
That day, the classroom wasn’t a hierarchy. It was a shared space of curiosity, compassion, and courage. I wasn’t a teacher, and the whiteboard was no longer mine; it was ours.
I think over the years, teaching became about control for me—about holding the map. If I held the map, if I sat behind the wheel, then I could save them. I could keep them from driving the wrong way from overcorrecting and going off the road, but maybe it’s more about handing the compass to your students and watching where they go—figuring out ways to place the lessons along the path that they choose instead of at the destination I make.
That day, I let go of the rubric, and in doing so, I found my way back to real learning.
Ink & Interruptions 
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