Digging for Sapphires

Digging for Sapphires. I love this analogy. Buried in the Earth amidst imposters (pebbles and rocks) lie beautiful jewels. When cleaned and polished, these stones sparkle and take on value, especially to the one that discovered them. Not everyone can find them. Like panning for gold, it takes patience and determination. The work hardly seems worth it at first... until that little blue flash of light catches your eye. Ruth Culham likens this process to the challenge of choosing a topic to write about. What a daunting task! BUT, once you uncover that most intriguing topic, you must acquire the resources/skills (i.e. 5 other traits) necessary to crank out a quality product, perhaps something resembling a precious sapphire ring in a beautiful diamond setting.

As I was reflecting upon the the "6+1 Traits of Writing," my usual thoughts surfaced - "How practical is this? Are schools actually using it?" WELL... this time, I had the opportunity to find out. My cooperating teacher confirmed that teachers are in fact teaching these traits - some more than others. However, it's all still very subjective as teachers determine the rules and instruct students in the characteristics of "good writing." There wasn't a lot of time for a more in-depth conversation, as we then went into lockdown mode and entertained students for the next hour and fifteen minutes. I'm not quite sure how a chlorine spill occurs, but one certainly did today. Oh and did you know that a pro can build 36 stories or more in Jenga?

When I was searching for some type of resource to attach to my thoughts above, I ran across a list (compiled each year) of actual metaphors and analogies from high school essays submitted by teachers across the country. I don't know that I'm convinced that these are from real papers that kids have written, but nevertheless, they're great! I figured that lost among all of this academia, we sometimes forget our sense of humor. Okay, maybe that's just me.

Laugh. It's good for you.