Legos, Fishtanks, and Vomit

I spent nearly five hours today planning a single lesson. The lesson itself will last little more than an hour and I'll teach it twice and then not again for a year. At least it was an important lesson: how to write a good paragraph. Writing a good, coherent, and smoothly written paragraph is one of our department goals for seventh graders this year, so it's important to teach it write. I'm insanely proud of the lesson, so much so that I'll be greatly disappointed if it turns out less than wonderfully. It involves, like many of my lessons, powerpoint and a random analogy. I've compared five paragraph essays to legos and vomit, and now a well written paragraph is a fish tank. I wonder if all these analogies help me teach more clearly, or if my students think I speak in riddles. Sometimes I feel like the Guru from the B.C. comic strip. If they climbed up the mountain and lay gasping out their question, "What makes a good paragraph?" I would stare out over the mountains for a few moments, contemplating my vast stores of wisdom, before replying with a sarcastic quip or a bizarre analogy: "A paragraph is like a fish tank my friend..." "Preparing to write an essay is like digesting food...." "This Lego model represents the five-paragraph essay, let us meditate together on the lessons it can teach us..." "Personal pronouns are like the bridge crew of the starship Enterprise...." "Indefinite pronouns are like power rangers, the black power ranger in particular....." "8th graders are a lot like chickens...." etc. I lose track of all the different analogies I've used to explain things to my students.

You see, analogies are like my appendix. I've always had one everywhere I go and no matter what I talk about, but I'm still trying to figure out if they're good for anything.