I once had an English teacher that always marked me down because she didn't like my style of writing...now that's stupid.

Not necessarily. Not passing judgement on your style of writing... I remember that when I first came to the US, my writing style was much more Old English (Kings English) and the American teachers didn't like the way it flowed.

That's nothing, I had an English teacher who had terrible grammar, spelling, and reading skills, and she tried to fail me simply because she didn't like me. My entire class complained about her to the principal.

Not necessarily, creative writing assignments usually have some form of topic or guideline in an effort to improve the students' writing. It's not just a spot for you to write down free flow streams of consciousness to get free grades.

I once wrote a story about a gremlin buying coffee for his sick wife. I had the gremlin wear bad clothing, try to purchase coffee he didn't know the names for, and meet people who thought he was a child. I got an A on the assignment, because the teacher said it flowed, had easily accessible characters, stayed true to the world I had created, and did not break the rules I had implemented. The Gremlin did not suddenly gain powers or turn into a human. It was believable because I made sure to establish rules the reader could understand. There was a girl who wrote about a relationship. In it, too many wonderful things happened to the main characters. They won the lottery, inherited a castle in Northern Scotland, won cutest couple, had nice cars, and despite being 16 both had PhDs. It made no sense because the characters were normal, not very smart 16 year olds who talked "like omg I love you so much I want to like swim in your eyes." She got a C- and everyone who read the assignment said there was no way it could happen, the plot was just fluffy happiness, and no one likes to read trash like that with no conflict.

63, that second story sounds like a classic Mary Sue story. Gag. Yours however sounds interesting xD

Maybe you get specific guidelines for your creative class but I had a teacher that docks points for reasons that no one knew beforehand except him and he didn't explain them until the end of the school year (trust me, lot's of students were wondering why they had such low grades and wanted to know, 80% failure rate that year). For example: you had to add a design to your papers, this had to be the same one for every paper. If he said that at the beginning of the year, no problem. If it was a creative class, yeah maybe you should have expected that. He teaches writing and grades more on other stuff then actual content and spelling. Anyhow, because of this experience I don't find it hard to imagine that OP didn't have a lot of guidelines and/or that a realistic story wasn't included in the guideliness. It is however good writing to draw a person in, to make them believe the story and the teacher can dock points for bad writing (explaining it as overly dramatic). That shouldn't be explicitely explained in the assignment. And he still got 74%? That's not a bad grade, this might have been an FML if the teacher failed OP. So stuff happened to OP's life, at least it isn't boring and OP never said that the events described were all bad.

It's not always the teachers to blame, dear.

If it follows your life closely and a traumatic event happened that you can't forget about, & you feel you want to share, then yes it is considered creative writing. You're writing about it and the details that happened. If I could write about my car accident (that almost left me for dead) as creative writing I would.

Creative writing, for a lot of people, is more than just a class for bad writers to write bad stories. A lot of people take writing very seriously.

That is very true. I take my writing seriously putting lots of thought into it. You can add more than just drama as well. There's comedy, thrill, and action. That's the stuff I like.