Year after year after year …

When returning from school after a summer break, the first day’s assignment was ALWAYS the same.

I would walk into my classroom, sit down at my desk, and look up at the blackboard. There it was staring back at me AGAIN – “How I Spent My Summer Vacation”.

I often wondered why all the amazing English teachers I had throughout the years couldn’t come up with something more “original”. After all, Language Arts was their field of expertise!  Certainly they could manage to come up with something NEW.

My suspicions led me to believe they were just strolling down Lazy Lane.

I finally figured it out the motive to this madness when I reached the ninth grade (okay, so maybe I was more like the tortoise than the hare back then).

The title of the assignment didn’t matter!  Not one bit.  However, the WRITING did.

By consistently giving the same writing assignment at the start up of every new school year, teachers could gauge whether our writing skills had improved … or not … from the previous year.  Then they would know what skills to focus on for the coming weeks and months.

Writing lots of papers on “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” reminds me of my recent experience in participating in a 30-day blogging challenge (30 posts in 30 days).

By staying committed to the challenge, I’ve become better disciplined, skilled, faster, and more confident in my writing.

There’s definitely a payoff in doing something over and over again!

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