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Elementary school projects never seemed to go my way. I was an eager child, an attribute that seldom made up for the fact that I often failed to think things through. For example, there was the science project where I tried to demonstrate how light affects spore growth by setting out two slices of bread on my desk and another two slices in my desk drawer. Result: a lot of dried-up bread. Turning in two weeks’ worth of pictures that documented the bread getting crumblier and increasingly more pathetic-looking was the most humiliating part of that ordeal.

Then there was the time that we all took home one of the butterflies we had raised in class because there were still several weeks of Alaskan winter to go before we could release them outside. I was unprepared for the responsibility of caring for something more complicated than a Tamagotchi, and the way the butterfly clung helplessly to my bedroom window and fluttered around my room all night freaked me out so much that I threw it away in the bathroom trash can, burying it alive under a heap of crumpled tissues. I still feel guilty about it.

The school Christmas play seemed promising enough with me in the lead, overacting my heart out, and in fact, it went great—right up to the minute I barfed all over the auditorium. It seemed that elementary school was not my cup of high-fructose fruit punch and that I should just accept my failure and try again in junior high. But then we were assigned the Native Alaskan Diorama projects, and I changed the face of sixth grade forever.

Well, maybe not. But I sure thought I was going to.

The Native Alaskan Diorama projects were the apex of our elementary careers. We were each assigned a particular Native Alaskan tribe, and we then constructed, with varying amounts of interference by our parents, a miniature replica of that tribe’s traditional house. It was a project reserved for sixth graders, and every year when they went on display, I drooled over the rows and rows of tiny houses of wavering cultural accuracy, eager for my turn.

The diorama was worth the same as any other project or test, but this was immaterial. As far as I was concerned, this grade measured the very worth of my soul. I wanted my project to be remembered forever, like the works of the greats who came before me: those geniuses who made sugar-cube igloos and glistening hair-gel ponds. Here, I could make up for every sub-par performance that had plagued my short life thus far. This project would redeem me for every poorly thought-out experiment, every butterfly dead by my hands, every unfortunate audience member who found themselves within the radius of my upchuck.

Mrs. Christensen assigned me the plank house, a type of native-Alaskan housing that is complex and symmetrical—a perfect fit for an OCD 12-year-old with delusions of grandeur.

After a craft store run—one of the dozens my family had made since I was enrolled in school (buy stock in Michael’s, people)—I sat down in our dining room, which had long since been transformed into a “Boy, This School Sure Assigns a Lot of Projects Workplace,” and got down to business. I delegated all measuring tasks to my engineer parents, who were undoubtedly grateful for the opportunity to continue doing at home what they had spent the last eight hours performing at work. I sliced balsa wood into long planks with an X-Acto knife and meticulously glued them together, recreating the traditional plank house so faithfully that any tiny Native Alaskans who came along could have sought shelter in it.

I left half of the roof open—I had seen a student do this the year before and found it brilliant—so that everyone could see the tiny beds I had made out of toothpicks and real leather, the fire pit with shimmery red contact paper for flames, the baskets of itty-bitty food I had baked from clay. The night before it was due, I attached tiny branches of Sitka spruce to make a forest and painted a frothy ocean shore. To finish my masterpiece, I covered the shoreline in sand I’d collected from Hawaii on a family vacation. I knew it was spectacular, and I knew it was the stuff of sixth-grade project legend.

I ultimately received a “B” from Mrs. Christensen. “Wrong door,” she had hastily scribbled in offensive red pen. “Should be like Jason’s.”

Jason had attached a toilet paper roll to a shoebox and covered it with some moss he had stripped from a tree trunk at recess.

I think the lesson I was I supposed to learn was to appreciate the act of creating, no matter what the results, or to find worth in what others don’t. Perhaps it was just to follow directions more closely. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any of these maxims with me. Rather, I pouted a bit and then got over it when I received the next project assignment and was swallowed up once again by my relentless enthusiasm.

That diorama still sits in my closet. I took it down to inspect it the other day, and I have to admit, it may not be the most historically accurate thing I’ve ever made. No, the Native Alaskans probably didn’t sleep in bunk beds. Or eat tiny clay hot dogs. But man, what a plank house! Whatever grade I deserved, I recognized some important part of myself there, nestled between those old branches and what’s left of the Hawaiian sand—some vivaciousness and determination that perhaps hasn’t completely left me but is just buried beneath the distractions of adulthood. So maybe I won’t throw it away just yet.

Rachel Walls is an Alaskan who strayed east. She currently lives in Boston where she attends Emerson College.  Her latest creative venture is telling jokes to an audience of strangers for free.