Here's a crazy idea. How about you use the "reply" button to actually respond to the first comment instead of using it to put your two cents at the top.

Tell her that you did but you thought it wasn't interesting so you preferred to do something else. Also tell her you're passionate about the stuff you wrote and share a touching anecdote about your childhood. It's called appeal to emotion. (yes. This is what my English class has turned me into).

And why assume the teacher was a female?

You most probably did not read the exact question and made a partial assumption on what was being asked, which turned out to not be what they asked. Seen this often in classes where people do not read the question exactly.

One time I worked on journal entries from the point of view of a character in a book. My feedback was "Actually, [the character] was a very sophisticated writer." SLAM

You must have had the same professor I had for my anthropology class.

36-- Because English has no third person, singular pronoun typically used to refer to people, and without knowing the teacher's actual gender, 16 had three options: 1. Make a guess 2. Use the clumsy, yet politically correct, 'him or her' 3. Use the (in this case) ungrammatical third person plural pronoun 'them'. 16 chose wisely.

Wow, what a rotten teacher. I suppose you could always ask him/her just what you did wrong and try to get clarification.

Even if the essay is awesome, if you have diverged from the topic too much, it is still an F

Some people are just not meant to be teachers