Hi,
You might want to show this answer to your English teacher.
I was a School Psychologist for 21 years, so I can see this problem from both points of view.
From your point of view:
1) You did the assignment, at least once. Your teacher could have shredded all but one essay, graded it, and the assignment would have been done.
2) You did MORE than the asignment asked, thus showing a high work ethic, high motivation to express yourself verbally, and an understanding of the assignment, plus larger implications of the meaning of the assignment than were asked.
3) Overachievement could not possibly be considered "slacking".
From your teacher's point of view (some ideas!)--I cannot speak for the other person:
1) The assignment was for a discrete 2-page essay about ONE friend. If you had turned in only one essay, any one of them, it would have met the criteria. Doing otherwise did NOT follow the directions for the assignment.
2) Practically, the teacher has many essays to grade. By turning in 8-9 pages, you just burden the teacher with extra paperwork, needing to be sifted through.
3) Part of school is to prepare you for a future workplace. In the future workplace, you need to follow directions. If my supervisor wanted a psych report on a student, she did not want 4 little reports; she wanted A psych report on A student. Knowing to follow directions is vital, in workplaces.
4) Part of English is to teach you critical thinking. This has two parts:
a) You showed critical thinking by not agreeing with the concept of "best friend." That was fine. The better way to have informed your teacher that you had the skill, would have been to write the one essay, with a concluding paragraph involving an incisive argument that the concept of "best friend" is a spurious one, and that you see it as limited, perhaps. That would have met the assignment, plus demonstrated your critical thinking skills.
b) By writing the many essays, you demonstrated your critical thinking skills, YES; just in an inefficient way. The inefficiency of your thought process was the "slacking" part. Would Bill Maher have written 5 essays, or one incisive essay? Great writers write concise, incisive essays. My guess is your teacher would have rewarded an essay with a conclusion that critiqued well, and incisively, the concept of "best friend." The teacher may have even changed the assignment in the future, based on your thinking about it!
5) Because you did the assignment "incorrectly", by definition, you came across to an adult as a rebellious, argumentative-type person. I may not think that, but that is how that behavior could easily have come across to a teacher.
6) On the other hand, to "fail" the student seems an inaccurate assessment, as well. Failure implies an inability to do the assignment AT ALL ACCEPTABLY, and that was not the case, here. You could, still, have randomly picked one essay and shredded the others; you had that choice. Even a D- would appear more "fair" in the eyes on an impartial observer than a complete failure on the part of a student who did, indeed, write "one essay about a best friend," if she did as she described.
MY SUGGESTION TO BOTH PARTIES:
I would suggest that this student demonstrated some critical thinking skills that did, in some ways, go above-and-beyond that of the norm (unless you are in a setting such as Harvard, or another prestigious college environment).
I believe the student has the potential to do the asignment correctly, now that she understands some of the concepts involved in the teacher's point of view.
As the grade may be critical to passing, I would request that the student be given another assignment, to be done in a relatively short period of time (such as one weekend, or even in class over a one-hour period), on a topic of the teacher's choice. This would offer the student a chance to demonstrate her critical thinking and writing skills, and the grade would "stick."
This would be a compromise, offering the student the chance to prove her true English composition skill in a high-pressure situation, and the teacher the chance to test the student, and to give her one more chance.