:waitasec: My high school age son's English writing assignments on books, short stories, poems, etc., are all chosen from a hat and they are all obscure (and usuallly strange, IMO) pieces of literature. The teachers at his high school pick these odd subjects because there are so many papers already written on the internet that students can use and by assigning them an obscure piece of literature to analyze, there is less chance that they will be able to find much, if anything, already on the web. I've wondered about Sierra's assignment. I can't recall seeing or hearing whether she picked the piece on suicide herself or if it was assigned by the teacher. Does anyone recall that information? I do remember that she wrote and reportedly told her father and sister that she was excited about it. By the way, if my son ever gets excited about one of his writing assignments, I'll be sure to announce it to everyone!