Adelle Tower

Professor Lucchesi

ENG 101

15 January 2019

“Conceptual approach that begins to connect literacy as an individual development”

Peanut butter, jelly, a butter knife, and a bag of bread were set on the table. Paper on the desk in front of me, and my pencil ready. I was going to ace this in class write.

Then my teacher spoke, “your assignment for today, is with these materials in front of you, give me instructions to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich”.

I was baffled, the prompt so easy. The entire class finished in about twenty minutes. Our teacher, Mrs. Hallock, collected our papers and sat at the table with the materials for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She then began to read our papers aloud, following the instructions. The first one read:

“Take bread, put peanut butter on it, then jelly. Eat.”

Mrs. Hallock took the bread bag and placed the jar of peanut butter on top, then the jelly jar. In no way did that resemble a sandwich. The instructions were so simple I thought to myself, why did she not take the ingredients out of their containers? She continued reading through the papers following their explicit instructions. None created a sandwich. Just stacks of ingredients.

About halfway through the classes paper I understood the point she was trying to make. None of the instructions she was reading were specific enough. The ideal paper she was looking for would have read:

“Take two bread slices out of the bag. Unscrew peanut butter lid and using the butter knife spread the peanut butter onto one of the bread slices. Unscrew jelly lid and using the butter knife spread the jelly onto the other bread slice. Place one bread slice onto the other, peanut butter and jelly touching. Eat.”

This specificity she was looking for in this assignment has influenced my writing to this day. At that age, I was annoyed by the specificity, the taking off the lid and using the butter knife was implied. Everyone knows instinctually to take out the ingredients. But I followed her teaching because of my competitive nature to be the best of my class. As I’ve grown, and led events, camps, projects, also scientific experiments, I know how important it is to be very specific. Particularly, to be clear about every detail that needs to be completed.

This skill was taught to me at an early age and has followed me throughout my life up until now. Although I did not agree with it at the time, I could not conceptualize her point, I learned its importance through experience as I grew.