I used to paint things, now I use words

I'd generally paint in oil, but I had to do some watercolor in college. This was probably my favorite watercolor painting. (Yeah, I painted that!)

I know that "a picture is worth a thousand words," but I do have an MA in writing. So I think I get a little more out of my words than some other people out there.

I tried to get my students to do that today in class. I'm teaching about writing descriptive pieces, so I had them do a little exercise. I had wooden blocks, and I got three student volunteers. (I had three guys do it first.)

One student sat at one end of a table, and another was at the other end. I put the little podium between them so they couldn't see what the other was doing. They had exactly the same blocks. Then the third student described what one was building so that the other could build the exact same thing. We did it once with three guys, once with three girls, and once with a mixed group.

Nobody really got it exactly. But they all came close.

I asked them, "So what did you learn from this?"

One girl said, "Word choice is important."
I said, "Exactly. 'Flat' and 'sideways' might not mean the same thing to one person as they do to you."
A guy said, "I thought it was hard to say what I was thinking so that the other guy would understand it."
I said, "You mean, you had a hard time catering to your audience's needs?"
He said, "Yeah."

So I have them thinking about a piece of art they want to use for their descriptive paper. We'll see if they can turn that picture into a thousand words. (Okay, at least 500.)