The Perfect Paragraph
The first memory I have of writing was in second grade, this was the year I was taught the strict formula for a paragraph. My teacher had been drilling it into us for weeks, and we were finally put to the test when on Monday morning my classmates and I were told to write one full paragraph recounting the events of our weekend.
I distinctly remember having a moment of panic at the thought of having to compose an entire five sentences all on my own with no guidance from my teacher. But, despite my concerns, I pulled myself together and began to write. We were given a total of fifteen minutes to construct a five sentence paragraph that must include a topic sentence and a least two events from our weekend. I raced through my topic sentence with ease, and then began to describe, in great detail the pancake breakfast I had enjoyed on Saturday morning, and the wild tricycle ride down the hill in our backyard, which had resulted in a few minor scrapes and bruises and one very battered tricycle.
As I continued to write as much as possible about my weekend adventures I began to gain confidence and even attempted adding a comma or two in various locations throughout my paragraph. When my teacher announced that our time was up and that we should finish the sentence we were working on and turn in our papers, I had decided that now I was a fantastic writer. Even after having received my paragraph back the next day, once it had gone through some pretty severe critiquing and was now covered in red lines, which pointed out the numerous spelling errors and misplaced commas, I was on top of the world. This small piece of art that I had created had given me a sense of accomplishment so great that no teacher could tell me it wasn’t absolutely perfect.
I remember taking that one single paragraph home and sticking it right on the fridge next to all my big sisters perfect scoring spelling tests, math quizzes and even essays and feeling that I too had earned the right to display my excellent work in such a public location as our family kitchen.