MacDonald 1 Essay 3: First Draft In the Halls of High School High school is always looked back on one of the

most memorable moments in life. Senior weekend, prom, and graduation are just scraping the surface of the highlighted occurrences that will be reminisced upon when looking back on these glory days. However, something that always seems to creep back to memory alongside these events is the rumors that circulated during those times. They wedge their way into these recalled times and make even the clearest of stories a little murky on the surface. Some students happened to go to small schools where there were little to no rumors circulated, but the school I went to taught over 1,500 students, which left plenty of room for a few details to get misconstrued. By taking Knapps ideology to a very severe rumor that happened in our school, it becomes easy to see how the majority of the parts of his model are accurate and helped the rumor to function. Being witness to this well-developed rumor proved to me that along with providing a group with interesting stories, they can also do large amounts of damage to someones reputation in the different aspects of their life. My junior year of high school was by far the most eventful. Everyone was ending longterm relationships, friendships, and the occasional announcement of a pregnancy would come up in conversation. However, the beginning of an extremely scandalous rumor silenced all of this talk. According to a secret source, a female student in my grade had been having an affair with a physical education teacher. Apparently, the two would go out to dinner, go the park, and she supposedly slept over at his house after babysitting his children. What had fueled the rumor even more was after the two were supposedly found out, the teacher filed for divorce and was moved down to an elementary school in our district. Everyone around the school spoke about it.

MacDonald 2 The girl in question even put some truth behind the rumors by telling our peers that the teacher would provide her with rides home. It was one of the most talked about subjects in school, and Knapps model truly fit certain aspects of the situation. Both of their reputations were ruined in an academic, professional, family, and personal way. Knapp provides three classifications of rumors in selection, A Psychology of Rumor. This rumor could be found under the category of Wish RumorSuch rumors express the wishes and hopes of those among they circulate (361). This rumor in particular seemed to change according to how the students wanted to view it. If someone wanted them to continue their relationship or make it more exciting, these detail would somehow emerge in a new telling of the story. The rumor would be shaped by how everyone wanted it to go. Next, Knapp outlines seven steps that make a good rumor (361). In each he details how a rumor functions and continues to stay relevant, which is especially true in a setting such as a school. This particular rumor held all of the makings of a good rumor because it was able to fulfill each step of Knapps theory. Not only did it have distinct characteristics, but it also provided information that satisfied each the gossipers and listeners. The first criterion for Knapps formula to make a good rumor is no successful rumor may exceed a length or complexity greater than the memory span of the group through which it passes (361). Because high school ran five days a week, and a majority of the students saw this girl every day, the ability for this rumor to exceed the memory of gossip-seeking teenagers was very miniscule. There would always be someone staring and then quickly turning to their friend and whispering something as she walked by. These sorts of actions continued on for months, proving the fact that this rumor was so interesting and good (361). Someone that was

MacDonald 3 once known for being a star soccer player, swimmer, and sprinter was now in the spotlight for a completely different reason. The two also saw negative effects on their professional reputation when people began to catch hold of the story. This fits into Knapps second rule which is the rumor has the threshold to become a good story (361). Fortunately, for a group of high school students, this was not a difficult task to accomplish. Everyone was able to fulfill the process of heightening some elements, of leveling or deleting others (361). For example, when the part of the rumor came up that she had slept over at his house, someone just so happened to leave out the part that she babysat his children. Although this does not make it any more acceptable, there was still a key element in the rumor missing that could have provided insight into the background of the story. As the rumor began to grow, many people began mold the story into what they wanted to hear, not caring if they ruined their peer or teachers reputation. This is due to Knapps third criterion: distortion. He says that without distortion, a rumor cannot proceed into the realm of a good rumor (361). Distortion is able to greatly occur when things are kept more on a personto-person level (362). In the first introduction of this rumor, stories and details were kept very quiet. As word traveled, facts would become unknowingly altered; therefore, there were many differences between what really happened and what was said to have happened. Because there was not one direct source (like the media) distorting the rumor, the multiple inputs allowed for the rumor to change depending on what people wanted to hear. This rumor also fell in step with Knapps fourth way to make a rumor great. He believed that generalizations and only names familiar to the location should be used to create a good rumor (361). Because this rumor was centralized in our school, with names and locations

MacDonald 4 already familiar to the majority of us, the rumor was able to come off as valid. The fact that only the girl and the teacher were involved made it simple to keep track of what was happening. The biggest blow to their reputation came when the rumor was heard by administrators. It is one thing if there are a group of teenagers talking about it, but it reaches a whole new level when people of a higher status and control hear what is going on. According to Knapp in his fifth step, having the rumor reach a high authoritative source (362) gave it the prestige (362) it needed to achieve a higher level. When an email was sent out that students and teachers should not have any sort of personal contact outside of school, whether it be by cell phone, personal email, or gatherings, the school exploded with speculation. Why all of a sudden were the administrators so worried about this? Was the girl and PE teacher the only case? Or were there more happenings like this? These questions soon began to get answered, in most cases not truthfully, but when it came to the rumor, they were answers all the same. Knapp believed that a rumor has to also coincide with the cultural traditions of the group in which they circulate (362). In our culture, it is extremely inappropriate to date one of your teachers, especially when it is illegal. Because the girl was a minor and the PE teacher was not only her educator but a thirty year old man, the rumor became even more fascinating to the students of our school. It was made so interesting because the two were supposedly participating in activities that were not permissible in the lifestyle of school. Finally, Knapp says that the way for a successful rumor, to thrive, must always adapt itself to the immediate as well as to the traditional circumstances of the group (362). The rumor about the girl and teacher was able to thrive because it was at a point where there was so much competition for a good story (361) that this one was immediately accepted. In turn, this

MacDonald 5 acceptance allowed the rumor to begin to grow and latch onto the minds of the people involved. How else would the traditional group of high school students be able to survive school? Rumors are like bad games of telephone. Someone starts off by saying I like dogs, and when it comes out the other end, the phrase turned to, I only like dogs when there is a full moon and I just ate a bag of Cheetos. A harmless start turns into something completely strange and filled with details extraneous to the actual story. The rumor about the girl and the PE teacher started off as a simple story, but after the students of the school caught wind of it, it soon became out of control. When the administrators were made aware of it, the whole school was creating different parts of the rumor left and right. If Knapp was able to be a part of this, he would be completely satisfied with the results. His ability to breakdown a rumor into specific categories and predict how successful they would be was extremely helpful for the analysis of this rumor.

Work Cited Writing and Reading across the Curriculum. 12th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013.Print.