My Second Chance

When I wrote the communities unit paper, I was a bit concerned about my writing ability. The first paper on identity was not graded at a level I agreed with. I decided to make a trip to Everett Community College and talk with Professor Smith to reach some level of “AH HA” with negative results (not by her fault). I went home to start on a new adventure in writing with hopefully the right perception of the requirements.

The assignment prompt was "How do communities function in our lives?" We were also to interview someone from a community we were a part of and use the information in the essay. I wrote “Communities Provide” trying to get to the essence of what values we seek that makes us join communities and support my findings through passages in our reading and my example community.

Once I wrote it, I began asking everyone I knew to read it and give me feedback. From the discussion group I had mixed feelings and everyone on the outside wanted me to change something. When I got done, I had a paper of changes and words I would never use to talk to anyone like “The hallmark of a community”. I knew I should have just stayed with what I had because it was in simpler terms and I felt it was much clearer. Also, the paper got so long with all the changes that I was forced to delete information that supported sentences resulting in incomplete thoughts.

Our assignment is to re-write a paper we think could benefit from it. I can tell you that the majority of what I write could benefit from a re-write. This paper, however, I was displeased with even submitting it prior to my grade. I think my original paper makes more sense and is written more to my voice.

The paper itself is striving to prove that communities are created by people trying to achieve goals by helping a group of people trying to achieve goals. These communities take leadership, promotion, and active members. It points out that communities create a living culture that once started will continue without the originating members. Also, diversity in modern communities has increased due to technology. Today’s communities may have people that have never met in person but have full access to one another. Through technology, communities that were limited to the city limits of where they were originated years ago can now be worldwide. I would say that even if this essay is not perfectly organized, it is packed full of great information about communities and worth reading. The first draft in italics is the original.