This revision narrowed my writing from a summary to a focus on a certain point in my writing career. I went into depth on how this event gave me confidence in writing and how I look forward to the future. Almost all of Essay 1 was revised. When I stepped back and looked at the forest, I found a completely different way to enter the tree (analogy made from LTC Ticen).

Revision

“Everyone, you may be seated.” Father McFadden called the whole mass to attention. Everyone sat down. They were looking at me. “Let’s go George,” whispered one of my classmates in encouragement. I knew this day would come, I was prepared, but I could not control the butterflies building in my stomach. I walked up the stairs, bowed to the altar, and shuffled my papers to begin. The tension could be cut with a butter knife; a single sniffle broke the silence. It was how I prepared for the speech that gave me the confidence to deliver and put my writing skills to the test.

“How is it coming, George,” Sister Susan would say as she passed me in the hallway in the morning. It was two months before I gave this speech and I remember the constant reminders from her, asking about my progress. Sister Susan (yes, there are still nuns in catholic high schools), director of activities for Trinity High School, was in charge of organizing the baccalaureate Mass as well as graduation. She gave me previous speeches so I could see what my predecessors decided to speak about. These previous speeches were, in my opinion, very boring, especially the speech from the previous class president. His speech, for example, digressed on what they have achieved as a class and yet failed to mention any particular facts to support this clam. Once I awoke from boredom, I came to my first realization: be factual not fluffy. The speech was my top priority at the moment and I now knew that I had to select what unique facts pertained to my class. I had to keep all of this information within two and a half pages.

I thought to myself, how the heck am I going to sum up the senior year in two and a half pages? As my mom would always tell me for any paper I would struggle with, “starting it is the hardest part. Once you start writing, it gets easier.” This message was all too true (mom knows best) for me; I just needed the idea of what to base my speech off of. This idea alluded from my mind until I was a guest at a completely different graduation.

Two weeks before my own graduation, I attended my oldest brother’s graduation from the Virginia Military Institute (class of 2015). Seeing what an impact this school has had on my brother, I was very interested to listen to what the class president had to say about his class. VMI’s class of 2015 president gave short remarks, but a great summation of his brethren before introducing the commencement speaker. It was in this speech that a light bulb went off in my head. He listed individual accomplishments including champion athletes, accomplished students, and any other event that made the class of 2015 unique. This idea of individual accomplishment may sound selfish, but it gives a class bragging rights to show others why your class was so special. This idea makes the speech intended for a completely different audience.

The pieces of the puzzle were finally coming together. I was treating the speech as just an address to my 137 classmates. This narrow audience was easier to write to, but the rest of the audience in attendance, the parents however, would have a harder time understanding. Why not show the audience how awesome my class is by using factual information and not the typical puffy graduation speech?

I went into the writing process knowing I needed to shift to a broader audience as well as keep it factual. To do this, I would need to talk to fellow classmates, visit the school website, as well as recall anything from memory to collect data. The data was collected to make sure to include every aspect of the school life (academics, athletics, service projects, fundraisers, and college acceptances). Once I had my key points as well as my audience, the rest of the speech was not hard to write. Three days before my speech, I was ready.

It was now finally my time to shine. It was May 28, 2015 and St. Theresa Church was almost packed to capacity. This was the night before our class graduation from Trinity High School. Mass had ended at it was my turn to give my final address before the class of 2015 as president. As soon as that sniffle subsided (referenced in paragraph 1), the rest was history. The butterflies disappeared; I was proud in my delivery and ready to move on to the next chapter of my life.

I felt a huge relief when I realized that the hard work that I put into my speech ended up paying off. The part of my speech that I believed had the most weight were the specific accomplishments of the class of 2015. The examples I used in my speech include: “a state champion girls soccer team, four girls signing to play Division 1 sports…students attending both West Point and the Naval Academy (and VMI of course)…most of all we raised a record of over $70,000 for the Four Diamonds Fund with almost 93% school attendance at this year’s THON*.” These were the defining moments of our class and what made us unique. These are examples in a speech that I feel you will remember in the future and not fall asleep to.

I experienced a new confidence in my writing skills that I have never felt before. I was putting my writing skills out there when I gave that speech for everyone to judge. When I succeeded, I felt like I could do anything. This moment was one of the major turning points in not only my writing, but in my public speaking skills as well. My past leading up to this moment was very shaky to say the least, but I would like to think the small successes in my future show that the past is just as important as well.

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My earliest memory of writing was when I was just 7 years old. I described my favorite pet, my Jack Russell Spotty, and why I wanted to write about her. This was a very simple writing and it seemed to stay that way until seventh and eighth grade. Up to seventh and eighth grade, we mostly focused on reading comprehension and not actual essay composition. In my middle school years at St. Theresa’s School, we wrote short vocabulary stories. In these short stories we had to incorporate our weekly vocabulary words from our books. These stories were fun to write, but they were never really challenging to me and never took more than one to two hours of my time. It was better than the simple reading comprehension, but not the challenge I wanted. I reached this challenge in high school with my first research paper. I was not used to doing detailed research,

It is through this certain memory that I realize writing is a lasting form of communication. I was able to reflect effectively on my past to learn from it. I used the research plans introduced in my freshmen year of high school to help me collect data for my speech in senior year. I learned to broaden my audience by listening to a speech from a graduating VMI cadet, which I hope to be in the future.

In conclusion, I hope to have future successes in writing thanks to past experiences as well as in ERH 101. I have learned that the use of audience shift, factual evidence, and simple planning can make the difference between sleep and applause.