The ripples from the VT shooting: be careful of what you write in creative writing

Americans are now more scared and stupid than ever after the VT shooting.

Allen Lee, a straight A student in Cary-Grove High in Cary, Illinois, was arrested for a creative writing essay he submitted due to violent content and references to school shooting. It was a routine creative writing assignment that the students are asked to write without interruption, making corrections, and censor as asked by his English teacher.

The full essay may be found here at Sun Times.

I guess this would be the end of the creative writing practice. The message now is be careful of what you would like to write, someone will be watching you. In the context of the VT shooting, this will no double stop people expressing their anger and frustration in a peaceful way. As one of the reader of the Sun Times' story pointing out:

"We all imagine gruesome, or sexual, or embarrassing things we wouldn't typically say out loud. Creative writing should be a vehicle to let those things out. Isn't that better than keeping them in? (The professors at Virginia Tech who told the world how they told Cho that his writing was unacceptable bear some responsibility for suppressing a means of escape and relief.)

"The police and school officials responsible for this young man's arrest are the real criminals. Public education and law enforcement have combined to show America how incompetent our public servants really are. With a government like this, you're damn right we need to bear arms."




To me, it's more like the English teacher was pissed about Lee's comments about her boring teaching style and wanted to punish him for that. Well, this teacher should be fired and the school should be sued for violating Lee's civil right and for all the consequences such as not be able to attend school while six weeks to graduation. Imaging a school suspends a student six weeks before graduation.