Growing up I was always an avid reader; I would spend hours ignoring social responsibilities, diving into the extensive fantasy worlds of Harry Potter and The Tale of Despereaux. On my eighth birthday, I was gifted a book that changed my life. It was a sea-green colored book with Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief written in gold on the illustrated cover. At that time, I was often targeted because of my strange behavior and bright blonde hair by peers at school. When I first read Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, I met someone incredible: Annabeth Chase, the daughter of Athena, known for her wisdom and striking blonde hair. I grew up with Disney princesses as female representation, but Annabeth was different. She was not afraid to get her hands dirty and would always save the day with some with some genius plan. Annabeth became my role model, and I became empowered by the fact that I saw myself in her. Several years later in the 6th grade, the bullying amped up, and I would often lash out, trying to defend myself. But that wasn’t allowed at my private school. I spent much of that year in and out of the disciplinary office alone. Eventually my time in the disciplinary office would land me into meeting the school psychologist. After what seemed like 100 tests that I could barely concentrate on and endless droning, I was diagnosed with ADHD. I was utterly confused and broken, I felt inferior. But I remembered something, the Percy Jackson series. I reread the books and found that Annabeth and all demigod heroes had ADHD just like me. They too had the same struggles but instead, their ADHD proved essential to their heroic feats. ADHD allowed demigods to have heightened senses when battling mythical monsters and I believed that I could do the same. The fact that I was able to see myself in a book character completely changed how I see myself. I went from an insecure, baffled preteen at the beginning of my diagnosis to a still insecure preteen who was able to see the positives in having ADHD. Growing up with Annabeth Chase has made me adopt her confidence and poise. Of course, I’m not a demigod nor can I really fight monsters, but I fight my own monsters every day, whether that be schoolwork or socializing. Annabeth Chase’s bravery allowed me to become vocal about my conditions and seek help for myself. I used to be petrified of asking for help, but Annabeth was most successful when she partnered with her demigod friends to take down challenges. She allowed me to see that my ADHD was not a burden, nor was I for having it. She helped me realize that I was not alone in my struggles, and nor do I have to fight them alone. Annabeth Chase is the reason I now have the bravery to question myself and the world around me. She is why I had the confidence to seek out an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis without any help. From her, I now know that my disabilities don’t disable me, they are a part of me that I should not be ashamed of, and I am not afraid to use them to fight my monsters.
One thought on ““This I Believe” Speech Draft”
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1.Identify the central conflict and structure (cause and effect, transformation, categorical) of this piece. Provide ideas for enhancing the central conflict structure/arrangement.
It seems that the central conflict of this piece is your struggles with ADHD, and how relating to something that you were passionate about helped you become more confident facing the challenges that came your way as a result. It appears you used the cause and effect style of composition, which I thought worked well for the topic at hand. I thought this was an awesome piece, and the only thing that I would recommend to fix up is to make your introduction and conclusion a bit more easy to recognize.
2. Could the piece be more sensory or engaging if told another way? Comment on how the style could be strengthened. Provide an example from the draft.
I think the first half includes some great imagery, but loses some steam in the second half. You start with “sea green book with gold lettering” and “bright blonde hair” but as the piece goes on, there are less of these great descriptors, which I think your story could really benefit from.
3. Name some possibilities for deeper characterization. How could the “I” be developed further? Is there more you would like to know about the relationships between “characters”? Were some details “author oriented” instead of “audience oriented”?
I think your “I” was really well developed, and I found it easy to understand where you were coming from and why you felt such a connection to the characters in Percy Jackson. Additionally, I thought you did a great job staying away from author oriented details, and I didn’t spot anything egregious that would not be understood by an unknowing listener.
4. Did the belief match up with the story? Offer some advice if you felt the piece moved toward a different conclusion.Comment on places to strengthen narrative coherence and narrative fidelity.
I think you should explicitly state what your belief is some time during the introduction, but if that belief is that your ADHD does not define you, then I think you did a great job keeping the story focused on that detail, especially when you likened it to being a hero in your favorite book.
5. Make a suggestion or two for something the author could move, change, add, or delete.
I think the biggest thing was that the couple of sentences you used towards the end, while great for your message, were a bot muddled and could benefit from some light clean up. Otherwise, I think that this was an awesome story with a great message.