It began with a simple class assignment from Hill School eighth grade English teacher and academic dean Hunt Lyman. After his students had finished reading Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," this past November, they were asked to select one ghost that taught Ebenezer Scrooge his most important lesson. The assignment: Do it in a single paragraph, with no more than six or seven sentences.

"A lot of them told us everything that happened in the book," Lyman said. "But they never did identify one lesson. At that point, Jill and I felt we needed them to focus on what makes a good paragraph. Can you make a statement, develop it and then find evidence to support it?"

Jill would be Jill Beifuss, chair of the school's English Department with her own eighth-grade class. Together, she and Lyman created what they called "Thursday's Paragraph." Every Thursday, their students are given a different assignment based on a single topic and are asked to write a cohesive paragraph. It could be done as homework or over ten minutes in class.

"We were reading True Grit," Beifuss said. "We asked how one of the characters was killed. Was it justice, or was it vengeance? What does the writer want you to think, and then tell me why."

Hill has always emphasized the importance of writing and "Thursday's Paragraph" fits nicely into its overall philosophy. Many Hill graduates still credit now-retired sixth-grade teacher Tal Mack, among others, with making them better writers. His annual assignment of doing a paper on the Rosetta Stone focused on writing, then re-writing, if necessary, and perhaps several more layers of editing beyond that.

Lyman and Beifuss are asking their students to do the same, only in a shorter form.

"We're thinking between five to seven sentences in each paragraph," Lyman said. "We try to set prompts up for them, something like 'who is the most ethically corrupt character in True Grit?'

One student wrote the following paragraph.

"In True Grit, Tom Chaney is certainly the worst character. He is shown killing with abandon again and again while still believing that "everything is against" him. He blames killing on his victims and goes from a cornered, whining baby to a vicious fox when he is on top. One of the greatest displays of his cruelty is the murder of Bibbs' dog. He shot it merely for barking at him, and he doesn't show a modicum of remorse. He only looks out for himself and reciprocates with crime."

The student states an opinion in the first sentence backs it up with examples to make the case, and then finishes with a conclusion to justify that opening statement.

Another student disagreed.

"In True Grit, Rooster Cogburn is the most ethically corrupt character in terms of how he views the world," the student wrote. "In a conversation, he has with LaBoeuf, Rooster talks about his past and LaBoeuf says, "They never did get you for stealing." Rooster responds, "I didn't think of it as stealing." This shows that he does not care for others when it comes to his survival, even though he is a U.S. Marshall. When he is introduced, Rooster is shown in court to have killed more than twenty criminals."

Lyman said over the last few months since they began the "Thursday's Paragraph" approach, he and Beifuss have seen "great progress" in all the students' ability to write a compelling and coherent paragraph that in some ways serves as a template for much of the writing they'll have to do in high school and college.

"Basically, I'd like to think our students trust us," Lyman said. "They believe we know what we're talking about. This is a fundamental skill. People talk about writing by recipe. But when you learn how to cook, you do use a recipe, but you can change it, too."

At Hill, especially on Thursdays.