Prompt: ""
Note: if my quoting prompts violates copyright, I can remove it.
Describe the assignment, it's benefit, its challenges, and the direction you went with it. Short reflection.
Sophia Perrin
Professor Andrew Young
ENC1101
13 February 2025
Wide Bases Build Better Towers
____Tower time. I thought, as I plopped down on the racecar carpet in my pinewood cubby. I hope Evan won’t knock it over this time. Evan meant well, but my towers could not withstand his sudden movements. The chattering room concealed my hidden, towering ambition.
***
____It was apparently a church; however, it didn’t smell like a church. The familiar, comforting smell of old wood had been replaced with sanitized children’s toys. I gazed down at the polished pine-plank floors. The walls extended endlessly in the same cream color seen outside of the buildings. The ceiling sheltered everyone under its massive, shadowed arch. Looking to the right of the entrance, I skipped along towards the beige-walled hallway labeled “Preschool.” My purple twinkletoes glittered on each impact, as the wide lobby collapsed into a three-foot-wide corridor. On my right again, the third door had been swung open for our class, which I entered without delay. The pinewood door stood behind me. My wide eyes darted to my left to see a craft area with hole-punchers, forward to see the storytime carpet with the alphabet on it, and to my right to see three themed play cubbies. The closest cubby housed a paper brick set that wasn’t in use. In less than a second, I darted over to the corner to the blue, red, and yellow paper bricks before anyone else got any ideas. Maybe this time my tower will stand.
***
____As I pulled all the smooth, rectangular bricks out of their shelves, I was greeted by that comforting smell of old paper, almost putrid from endless handling. I tossed my bricks onto the carpet. The bricks gave the feeling of “Sapere aude!” (They dared me to know). They dared me to build a tower. They dared me to build a tower that stands. One stray brick landed outside the pile; I set my lucky brick aside to be the topper. After a moment of hesitation, I grabbed a yellow brick with white lines on it and started gingerly stacking my two-block-wide tower. I placed a blue brick, a yellow brick, another blue brick, and kept going until my hand strained to reach the top. I backed up to admire my creation. A tower! It stood unsupported in the little cubby and was almost taller than the shelves. I wanted to add the topper, but Evan came over to see. His curly, blond hair bounced on his head as he came entirely too quickly over to my cubby. I could see his sorry countenance as he toppled it over, leaving my dreams in a pile of tri-colored bricks on a racecar rug. I moaned, “Why?”
____“Sorry.” He looked at the floor. For a four-year-old, Evan looked dejected. Evan soon decided his presence was not welcome, and left.
____As I watched him toddle away, I thought, “Not again.” I guess I’m building it wrong. The cool tower’s not fun anymore. I formulated my new plan. I’m gonna just make a flat one. Those don’t fall. I picked up all my scattered bricks to make a pyramid; The Egyptians knew what they were doing, I hoped. I threw my blocks into a square. I stacked a multicolor base, a smaller blue, then eine kleine yellow, and red at the top. I added my lucky topper with my leftover brick. I backed up, gazed at my creation, and saw it nearly reached two thirds of my previous tower’s height. Evan toddled over to my stronger tower, but the tower withstood his clumsiness. Nothing fell over this time. Evan and I were equally impressed with the unique, tapering shape of my structurally sound tower. I studied it, or better, stared at it for as long as my attention-span could handle. The bottom started wide, but it became a tower at the top. I decided to ask a teacher why wider bases caused so much less trouble. “Why do these ones work better?” I asked.
____Ms. Pam told me that pyramids were more structurally sound than towers because they had a stronger support.
____Ha. I guess the cool way was the one building it wrong. My second tower wasn’t the tallest, but it was the strongest.
____Ms. Pam walked to the middle of the room and warned the class that we only had five minutes of playtime left today. I took one last glace at my “pyramid” I had made, its stem that extended its height, and its lucky red topper at the top. I should have asked Evan to knock it down, but I toppled it myself. The bricks made a now-welcome thud when they hit the racecar carpet. Evan helped me put the bricks back with a plop, plop, plop. The red, blue, and yellow bricks were happily put back in their color-coded places.
____“Snack time!” Ms. Pam announced.
____The entire class rushed to the snack room. I wanna be first in line! The scent of snacktime quickly overtook the paper bricks. Great Value cinnamon graham crackers sweetened the air already. The hallway chattered like a bustling metropolis. Everyone inhaled their snacks, while planning what fun they would have tomorrow. I savored my sugar-sanded, crunchy graham cracker, but abhorred my moldy-textured, mashed apple sauce. “I’ll make a pyramid tomorrow too,” must have crossed my mind as I inhaled my snack. I had my revelation: wide bases build better towers.
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Uploaded on 3 May 2024
N.B. I only partially formatted the text, so there will be errors.
Grade Rambling: I recieved a 100% for this essay at 10% of the class grade