“Red Jar” by Emily Jiang talks about her silent suffering under the school education system. She compares her writing to making a wrap and rolling it up. She didn't like following the rules of writing rubrics in order to get a good grade, but doing otherwise was seen as “bad behavior.” To demonstrate, Emily writes, “I keep quiet, because even eating the same stale burrito every day of second grade is better than the red jar.”
Our education system in America definitely has some flaws. I'm not the first to say that and I won't be the last. What it wants to teach is creativity, but what it impresses upon us is conformity. Emily describes those guidelines in writing rubrics as “shredded-lettuce transition words” and “diced-tomato topic sentences,” wanting to pick them out. I can relate to her desire to be Dickens and Tolstoy, to make her own wrap of fresh ingredients.