“This I Believe” Essay Reflection In this project we were giving the prompt to write about something that we believe in and tell a story about an experience that taught us to believe what we believe. The second that Jessica asked us to write about something that we believed in immediately 2 topics came to my head. The first one being about a very good friend of mine that passed away to suicide and the second one being a very close family friend that passed away in a motorcycle accident. By the next day I had chosen to write about the suicide because I felt a closer connection and belief to this topic. So I began writing. The more I wrote the more I realized how much I believed in the topic that not everything that is going on in a person is visible to the outside world. Before I knew it, I had a ruff draft and was ready to start my revisions and start really making it to where I was showing the audience what I was talking about and putting images of what I was saying in their heads. Overall the process was extremely smooth and enjoyable for me. I loved this project and it is something that I will try to continue in my future. In this essay I think I did a very good job of anecdotal writing and truly painting that picture for my audience to see and be able to feel what was happening. “We were at Escalante, and he had been gone for a couple of days. He was standing by the Taz team pod, and I was by the Panther's team. This was a long straight hallway where the kids hung out during breaks and passing periods. When I saw Cody standing there talking to his friend Drake, we made eye contact. He flashed me a huge smile and opened his arms and said come jump. I ran up to Cody and jumped into his arms. He held me for a couple of minutes in silence and then put me down.” When I was writing these lines I was looking at the scene playing over in my head and doing my best to show the audience exactly what I had seen and what I had felt. When I was telling the story about Cody and I spending the day together before he passed I felt I did A good job of using detail while still being somewhat concise. Though I felt that I wrote a very strong essay there was much room for improvement. In my mind the biggest area for improvement would be the length of the essay, and no it was not to short. My essay was supposed to be 350 - 500 words. After I finished, went over twice on my own, and once with Jessica to eliminate words that were not necessary, my essay was still around 850 words. I feel that I could have still gone to the extent of detail and description that I did while summing up the words so that they were in the word range. As a writer I would like to be able to write an amazing story while still using minimal words and making sure that the essay in concise and non-repetitive.