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Issue Date: July 10, 2005
Call to Action
Be part of a new series from NPR
Write a "This I Believe" essay, like students across the nation.
For more information
Read "This I Believe" essays from the '50s and today, find out where to hear the series on your local NPR member station, or submit an essay by visiting npr.org/thisibelieve. For teacher resources, click on "Get Involved."
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When Michael Champagne's sixth-grade teacher asked him to put into words one thing he believed, he liked the assignment. Nobody had ever asked the 13-year-old that before.
That idea stems from "This I Believe," the essay program heard on National Public Radio stations each Monday (alternating between "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered"). At least one USA WEEKEND reader will be invited to share his or her essay on the air. "This I Believe," a revival of a '50s series hosted by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, is a collaboration between NPR and This I Believe Inc., produced by Dan Gediman and Jay Allison.
Champagne's class at Nevada City (Calif.) School for the Arts is one of many at schools and universities to submit essays. Teacher Scott Young got the idea to turn the program into a class assignment after he heard novelist John Updike read his essay on the air in April. "It's a compelling idea," Young says. In very few words, "you present the answer to, if not the world's most profound question, one of them," he says. His students "felt like the very experience of talking about it opened their eyes to classmates in ways they never did before -- and some of them have known each other since the first grade."
Megan Grose, 19, a sophomore at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, sought advice before settling on a topic for an assignment for her public speaking class. "I had to think about what I believe passionately enough to write about. I asked my friends what they think my strength is, and they said, 'You're such a positive person.' So I wrote that I believe people should have a more positive attitude."
Teens in teacher Ann Watson's literature class focused on matters close at hand: getting a second chance in life. They attend Project Change Alternative Recovery School in Waukesha, Wis., for high schoolers overcoming drug addiction. "To get them to discuss the tenets that got them through life has been amazing," Watson says. "I didn't realize what a deep thinker [one student] was. People normally don't stop to ask."
-- Robin Reid
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To submit an essay to NPR's "This I Believe," follow these tips
Be specific. Take your belief out of the ether; ground it in your life. Your story need not be heartwarming or gut-wrenching -- it can even be funny -- but it should be real. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or changed. Think of your own work and family -- things you know.
This is for radio. Write in a way that's comfortable for you to speak. We recommend you read your essay aloud to yourself several times, and keep editing and simplifying until you find the words, tone and story that truly echo your belief and the way you speak.
If you can't name it in a sentence or two, your essay might not be about belief. Rather than write a list of beliefs, focus on a core belief -- three minutes go by quickly!
Write 350 to 500 words. That comes to about three minutes when read aloud.
Please don't preach or editorialize. Refrain from saying what you do not believe. Make your essay about you; speak in the first person ("I").
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