The seven different motions of the stars:

I had a rather weird science teacher in seventh grade. One day he insisted that the sun and the stars do not move. I went home, researched this matter, and angrily used my parent's old typewriter to bang out an essay that I called "The seven different motions of the stars," and proudly handed it to my teacher. A day later he said to me "That was interesting," but he never recanted in class, and he never gave the essay back to me. That was the last essay I ever submitted anywhere for no credit until I started blogging. (Today I cannot recall a full seven distinct star motions, too bad I couldn't easily make copies of papers in the 1950's. It really bothered me that my teacher lacked the good manners to return the essay to me.)