Students responded to a prompt that directed them to choose an item and explain how that item describes something about them. 

The following is an example of a 6 score by Chassity DeBerry, Class of 2004.

Some people think that a style of clothing, or their accent represents them. I, on the other hand, believe a cross describes me perfectly.  You might have questions, concerns, ideas, or maybe you just don’t understand. Well, allow me to explain…

            Along time ago, when I was merely four years of age, my great Aunt Betty, still in her “prime,” gave me a beautifull cross. It sparkled with cut stones, like a mini “silver” mine.  To me, the cross was spectacular. To my aunt, it was a religious investment in a todlers faith and future.  It had been only twenty dollars in her monthly avon magazine, and was a cute addition to my trinket box…yet inside, it held something more…

            At such a young age and not a child prodegy , I couldn’t read yet ..which is what made the cross interesting.  Inside the cross, in a tiny, tiny hole, sat the most beautiful words ever, ever, in all of time and world, The Lord’s Prayer.

            Glorious were the words to me, like a song from a harp to an angels ears.  Each night as my mother would tuck me in she would remove the dazzling necklace from my neck and peer into the small hole and read me this prayer as I drifted off into sleep.. dreaming and sleeping peacefully.

            Twelve years later, I still have the cross…most of the jewls are missing, and the small prayer which was once in mint condition, is now hidden by broken magnifying glass and dust from years of resting in my trinket box…I don’t take it out much in fear that another jewl will fall off or that I might drop it and lose it.  It is still spectacular to me and is just as sparkley.

            Now…you think whats the point in this, where do I relate to the cross?…here is where…

            The cross, just like me, has grown old; it has lost a few loved ones. It lost its jewls, I lost my great aunt, and my grandmother…both of a heart attack, but still we both shine. In its heart, it holds the Lords Prayer. In my heart lies the same prayer, worn with time but not forgotten.  It may have lost its innosense, yet it has gained a sagacious meaning, and still these qualities apply to me.  I also like to think that I relate to the cross, beautiful with age, by representing Christianity, and its true I’m a good, truthfull, fellow Christian, but our similarities and differences on that subject, would be another story…