Waving: Final Product, Part II

In the 1950s, Edward Murrow hosted a radio series entitled This I Believe.  Noteworthy individuals such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Robinson, and Helen Keller, along with various everyday citizens, read short essays on the air about a guiding belief in their life.  The project was revived by Dan Geidman in 2004.  Since then, over 100,000 essays have been submitted.  Many have aired on public radio.  They are archived at thisibelieve.org.  In the introduction of the anthology This I Believe II, editor Jay Allison asks "What would you say in five hundred words to capture a core principle that guides your life?  Can you name a belief that underlies your actions? In the discovered truths of your experience, what abides?"

I decided to try to do just that for the second part of my product.  Click the image for a full-screen view, or you can also read HERE.

My final product differs from my original intent.  From my very first blog post, where I explored the options for my inquiry and ultimately decided on creeds, I had planned to finish the project with my own creed.  I had thought that it would be a creed that would incorporate all aspects of myself.  In some ways I did accomplish that goal, as I reflected about my beliefs throughout the process of collecting information.  However, that is not the creed that ended up in print.  As I read about the This I Believe project, I began to wonder what belief I would submit.  At this point, I do not plan to actually submit it to This I Believe.  The caliber of my writing does not compare to the entries they typically receive.  Although my writing is somewhat personal, I decided I would go ahead and share it with my classmates (and anyone else who happens to visit this blog).

I feel fine with my decision to not create the final product that I had initially set out to create.  In none of the inquiry models that we have studied does the step of selecting a final product come before the information gathering process.  Instead, the information that is discovered helps determine the method or format for sharing the new information.  This was the case in my inquiry.