This piece was originally a response to Rebecca Solnit’s Essay “Open Door” in which I discussed how my experience snowboarding in the woods related to her description of nineteenth-century American explorers. However, I decided that it would be better to write a stand alone piece in order that I could explain how a specific moment changed my thinking about riding backcountry. I believe that this allowed me to better describe my thoughts about this subject, for I could spend less time connecting my ideas to Solnit’s work.

I included this inorder to explain why my conversation with Dick Bench was important and meaningful for me. I believe that this shows how I used the information he told me in order to develop new ideas about backcountry. I think that this makes my essay more interesting because I go beyond what I saw or heard and instead gave my reader insight on my thoughts and on how I perceive the world.

I added this to the end of the paragraph in order to explain why I thought RA’s willingness to cooperate was important. I decided that it would be interesting if I connected what I discussed in this paragraph to another idea that I had talked about earlier, namely to the topic of RAs having mentorship roles. I felt it was important to explain why their ability to value others opinions and cooperate would be valuable for their conversations with their residents. I think that this made the paragraph interesting because I used what I had learned from my research in order to develop a new idea about the RAs.

In my first draft, I did not include an in depth description of the Residence Life meeting; rather, I only generally stated that I found the RAs were willing to work together in order to come to a solution. I believe that this example was helpful for my essay because it showed a specific instance where the RAs cooperated. This was helpful for my essay because I could explain my thought process by describing how and why I felt this instance made me conclude that RAs are willing to cooperate, thus making my essay more personal and unique to me.

Originally, this paragraph only included examples of how RAs work together, I revised it to only include one example and include an explanation of why I think this makes them cooperative people who value the opinions of their peers. I included this explanation to show why I found the examples important. I felt that this revision made the paragraph more meaningful, for it allowed me to describe a quality that I believe RAs to have instead of just naming something that they commonly do.

I added this analysis after my first draft because I wanted to go beyond just writing what I observed and instead explain what my observations lead me to think. I believe that this made my essay interesting, for it described something about the RAs that a casual observer would have not been able to pick up on. I was critical and thoughtful with what I observed, which allowed me to develop meaningful conclusions about Serina’s motivation for being an RA.

Here, I decided to only focus on this one quote from Sarina, rather than include another quote from Oliver and an observation from their meeting. I decided to do this so that I could explain what specific things sparked ideas in my head. This allowed me to explain not only what caused me to develop new ideas, but why they did so, and how they influenced my thinking.

In my first draft, I did not give reasons why I felt that my RA took the position for only the benefits. Instead, I only stated that I rarely talked to him and that he gave me the impression that he did not care about his residents. I decided to include a specific example of his impersonal approach to our group meetings in order to explain how I drew conclusions about him.