This is the only paragraph that I made minimal changes to from my first draft. I thought that this was something I could put towards the end of my essay because it brings everything full circle, from being home to coming to college and homesickness to now waiting to go back home. Something that I struggled with was the structure of my details. I had the form of my ideas set, but I did not have concrete details that fully supported those ideas, so I used this paragraph as an example to structure the rest of my thoughts.

In my first draft, I had a hard time describing the hum of the traffic, similar to the one I heard back home in Texas. I tried to use synonyms like "buzz" or constantly repeating the word hum. Still, it was not as effective as I wanted it to be, so I used the stillness of the wind to transport the reader into a similar scene in which their mind just goes blank, and they can only focus on one thing, mine is the sound of the traffic.

As I was revising my first draft, I remember having a mental battle about this detail. Previously in the paragraph, I mentioned my earbuds, which I carry with me, and I wanted to use that as a detail of the place Lyons lawn. However, we were supposed to include pieces in the area, and my earbuds are not one of them. But I decided to keep it in my final draft because it was a good way of showing how the combination of using my earbuds at Lyons lawn helped me feel healed.

In my first draft, I mentioned the topic of homesickness, but I did not develop the idea enough. For my final draft, I decided to make it one of the main ideas of my paper by including more details of what I was feeling and how being in Lyons lawn reminded me of my home in Texas. Due to the sound of the cars driving by. Making those connections between my home in Texas and the surroundings of Lyons lawn showed my thoughts and emotions.

In the first draft I did not talk about how this event related to me now. So I added a sentence to introduce a new challenge that I was facing which is going to college and living in a different environment. Although that program helped me gain confidence during high school I have found it hard to keep that confidence in college since I do not have the same support system. Yet I am slowly building a friend group that has become a source of fresh air from homesickness and stress.

In my first draft I talked about how (HS)2 helped gain confidence. But it was really broad and I didn't specify why and how that program helped me get out of my shell. I added specific examples of like "the kind gaze" and "their eyes warm and bright" to show the contrast between the environment in Mrs. Ramirez's fifth-grade class and the people that I met at (HS)2. I then went on to show how the way people looked at me without judgement made me confident enough to participate in class, and not fear criticism.

This piece originated from the writing we submitted on our first day of class. That we got back during our last day of class. I chose to revise this piece because as I read it, I saw an event in my life that I really want to talk about and on that first draft I did not do it justice since it was to broad and there weren't enough details for anyone to know what's going on.

In my first draft I talked about how the program (HS)2 was a way in which I was able to find "myself". But I did not add sufficient background as to what kind of person I was before that and how I go to become that person. So I added a specific moment in my life that has stuck to my head which was my in Mrs. Ramirez's fifth-grade class and the example of a fight my siblings Victor and Valeria had to form a picture of the kind of person I was at home and at school before attending (HS)2.