I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at a high school in New York, when one of my students, 15-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before. I had seen Mikey himself writing the note at his desk. Most parental-excuse notes I received were penned by my students. If I were to deal with them, I'd be busy 24 hours a day. The _ excuse notes made a large pile , with writing that ranged from imaginative to crazy. The writers of those notes didn't realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: "Peter was late because the alarm clock didn't go off." Isn't it remarkable, I thought, how the students complained and said it was hard to put 200 words together on any subject? But when they produced excuse notes, they were brilliant. So one day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and gave them to my classes. I said, "They're supposed to be written by parents, but actually they are not. True, Mikey?"  The students looked at me nervously. "Now, this will be the first class to study the art of the excuse note--the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worth studying." Everyone smiled as I went on, "You used your imaginations. So try more now. Today I'd like you to write 'An Excuse Note from Adam to God' or 'An Excuse Note from Eve to God'. " Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. For the first time ever I saw students so careful in their writing that they had to be asked to go to lunch by their friends. The next day everyone had excuse notes. Heated discussions followed. The headmaster entered the classroom and walked up and down, looking at papers, and then said, "I'd like you to see me in my office." When I stepped into his office, he came to shake my hand and said, "I just want to tell you that that lesson, that task, whatever the hell you were doing, was great. Those kids were writing on the college level. Thank you." The author had the students practice writing excuse notes so that the students could learn   _  .
the importance of being honest how to write excuse notes skillfully the pleasure of creative writing how to be creative in writing