The story I told within my autobiography was the story of a young girl named Justice, and how she changed my life as a future educator. I chose this story because a lot of who I am, and who I will always be, stems from education. My mom, grandma, and aunts were and are teachers. I have grown up believing that education is extremely important in my life, and I want to share the joy of education with future generations. At first I was hesitant sharing this story. It is a personal story, and is also very personal to Justice and her life. I wasn’t sure I was ready to let people I barely know into my life so much, but I have changed my mind as the process has unfolded. It is a great story, and I am happy to share it with others. The greatest challenge I had when writing my narrative was that I wanted to be more descriptive. I could have written a 20 minute story, that is how much this has truly impacted my life. By cutting it down to 5 minutes, I cut out some important points I wanted to say, but I understand that a story is more interesting when it gets to the point. I also struggled making the story more about myself than Justice. My first draft was almost a biography about Justice, while my second and final recording reflect a story about me. It reflects how she changed me, for the good. She pushed me to keep pursuing my future.

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            I approached my story by first getting down all my ideas about what I wanted to share. Secondly, I organized these ideas into coherent thoughts, and paragraphs. I then made sure the story made sense, and added any details that I felt were left out. I knew from the beginning that my story was too long. I sat for a while trying to figure out what to cut out. I was able to figure it out, and still have a story that made sense, and reflected who I was. I think it would have been easier, in the future, to write a shorter story from the beginning because it was hard to cut it down. Rather, I would have liked to add information. Also, I would have liked to made the story more about myself from the beginning since it is an autobiography.

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          While I believe I was primarily successful in my endeavors creating the autobiography, some aspects I failed at. One failure in my autobiography are the times when my speech wasn’t necessarily clear. Sometimes, I hesitated, making the recording sound choppy. I know this is natural, but it doesn’t create a great final product. Also, I failed a little with some of my editing skills. There is a very clear mistake in the middle where I cut out some information and the cut is not very flowing. In the future, I will be able to make cuts better based on more experience. Half of me also thinks I failed with the music. I think maybe having music throughout could have made the piece more interesting to listen to. But then again, I do like the way I added music during the dramatic parts. I have learned a lot in this process. Learning how to record my voice, add music and make appropriate cuts, is something I have never done before. Now that I know how to do this it will be entirely useful to me for the refugee project. I am much more experienced with this type of mode, compared to when I entered the class at the beginning of the year. I am also excited to have learned how to use Audacity. It is a skill I will be able to use in my future. I will be able to edit, record, and set up the storyline for the refugee project based on what I have learned with the autobiography. This project also taught me how personal a story can be to someone. Learning this showed me that I have to be cognizant when asking questions to the refugees. Although I have not experienced some of the struggles they have, I understand how one story can be very personal, and I will keep this in mind for the refugee product. Overall, I am excited about the outcome of my autobiography.