RATIONALE- The rationale for this assignment was for students to develops their own creative short stories. Students had to write a 2.5 page (no longer) short story on an imagined event or based off of a real experience.
STANDARDS- Writing 3- Write narratives to develope real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well structured sequences.
REFLECTION- What I liked about this prodject was being able to be creative. What I disliked about this prodject was trying to find something to write about. The easy part of this prodject was writing about my experience and the hard part about it was trying to find something interesting to write about. I do not feel as if I mastered the standards because I handed this assignment/prodject in late. I learned that I can write about my experiences and make them seem interesting when I completed this prodject.
Ashley Tardiff
5-30-2014
Short Story
The Knee That Ruined Everything.
The muffled sound of the people around me started to die down and the thoughts in my
head started to overpower the surrounding noises. Still out of breath because of the race I did
earlier I whispered to myself. "You've got this. Just focus and you will make it to states." While
whispering I found myself having to pee. One of the people keeping score of the times we did
the race was asking the other girls on the track what they wanted when they were done the
race. I looked over after hearing her say that and said "Well personally i would really love to go
pee." she looked back at me after chuckling because of what i had said and responded "Well
don't pee your pant while your running!" and then started to chuckle again.
While in the midst of talking to the other girls competing up against me the official started
to talk. "Alright ladies there will be one call because none of you are using starting blocks. I'll
say get set and you will get into your running positions. Than as soon as you here the sound of
the gun you can go." Thats when all the thoughts started flooding back into my mind. I jumped
up and down for a second to get my leg muscles ready for the 400 meter race i was about to do.
I zoned out everything except for the officials voice and gun fire. "Get set!" called out the official
and then i become nervous.
Within no time the gun had fired and it was nothing but an open track lane, a finish line
and a cheering team and crowd. I was in the lead and doing great. Not worried about the other
competitors I looked forward and continued to run. While coming up on the second corner of the
track I was still whispering to myself. I took that second to last turn on the track and thats when
things took a turn for the worst. All i could hear was the sound of my knee "Pop!" Not willing to
give up on the race I tapped my knee and it popped back into place. Even though i was in a lot
of pain i continued to finish the race.
Every step i took was extremely painful but I knew how important finishing the race was
to not only me but my mom and aunt who had come to support me. As they cheered, unaware
of what had just happened, I could see the other girls run past me through my teary eyes. It felt
like years trying to get to the finish line. Every thing seemed to slow down and time seemed to
stop. As soon as i finished I hopped off the track and collapsed onto the ground. " Miss, you need
to stay on the track so we can get your name after you finish okay." said one of the officials. I
had got up and hobbled over to the man with the clip board. " Whats your name?" he asked in a
nice manner. " Ashley Tardiff." I responded with with tears in my eyes still.
I walked as best as i could back off the track and once more fell to the ground. " We have
a physical trainer here if you need to be seen we can call her over." cried out the man who wrote
down my name. I sat there in the grass, for what felt like a long time, grabbing my knee and
trying to make the pain go away. My coach walked up to me and asked how i did in the race. She
didn't see what i had done while running. I looked up at her and she saw i was in a great deal of
pain. She helped me across the track and I sat under the tent and out of the sun. I didn't know
exactly what I had done to my knee but I knew it couldn't have been good and i needed to go and
get it looked at. " Can you do me a favor?" "Yea, what do you need?" said my cousin who was
also in track. " Can you please go over to mom and ask her to come over here. Coached pulled
me out for the rest of the events."
Thats when the physical trainer brought me an ice pack and looked at my knee. " I cant
tell you right now just by looking at it this way, but you need to go to the doctors because it
might be something inside of your knee that we are not seeing." While she was finishing up
looking at my knee mom had made her way over to me. "Let me go and get aunt Maggie and we
can go get something to eat, a knee brace, and i will call the doctor and get an appointment for
tomorrow so we can get your knee checked out." said mom. While mom went to go and get my
aunt i had to be carried to the car. Not only was i embarrassed because i had to be carried to the
car but I was in a searing amount of pain. I wasn't thinking about anything other than the pain in
my knee. Little did i know it was going to be a while before that pain would disappear and my
life would go back to being a normal teenage life.
