Writing Homework Help

This I Believe

The This I Believe feature ran on NPR for nearly 50 years.

In 1951, the journalist Edward R. Murrow launched a storytelling project to get Americans talking about their values and the events that shaped their outlooks on life. The result was the hugely popular This I Believe series. This I Believe ran on radio stations for decades, and hundreds of Americans participated, including Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson and Albert Einstein. NPR revived the tradition in 2004, and today there’s a public archive of more than 125,000 This I Believe essays. 

For up to 10 points extra credit, you can write your own This I Believe essay. But with a strong focus on punctuation.

Here’s the deal:

• Explore the This I Believe archive (Links to an external site.) to get a flavor for this style of essay. Click on the explore (Links to an external site.) tab and you can search essays by age, name or theme. 
• Come up with an idea for your essay. It could be about anything that matters to you, from music to pets, family to a favorite sports car. Don’t feel like it needs to be about something heavy to be good. Many of the best essays find insights in everyday life.
• Write a 400 – 500-word essay. Give it a title.
• Your piece must include and properly use each of the following punctuation marks: colon, em dash, semicolon in the ‘giant comma’ fashion and semicolon as a way to separate independent clauses. Please bold or highlight these punctuation marks for grading purposes.