In my original piece, I had no mention of the time in between the breakup and the incident. I think it was really emotionally important for me to recognize that I did make it through the first round of emotions and that I will be able to make it through again.

This was (kind of) the original prompt of the free write that inspired this short piece. The prompt was "Since the beginning of this semester..." and I wrote my free write accordingly with parts of this story. However, through revision of the piece, I found that using that prompt in a different way was effective in explaining the events of the story.

This was one of the hardest revisions I had to make. My peers wanted to understand how all of the pieces fit together to have a profound impact on me. In these concluding sentences, I tried to evocatively include the ideas of my depression, rule-breaking, and candles to come to the conclusion that they all played into me being able to feel at home in such a foreign place.

In workshop, people were struggling to understand the connection between the incident and feeling more at home at Boston College. I included this sentence to connect how fire had bonded me to my family with how it ended up bonding me to my friends, just in a very different way.

I used this sentence to make the connection between the "shadow" of my depression and the way in which candles help me feel connected to a feeling of home and peacefulness.

In revision of my first draft, it came about that someone who has never experienced depression cannot fully understand how it affects someone. I used this metaphor of a shadow to help my readers who wouldn't understand to view it in a more practical manner.

This sentence did not exist in the first draft. My peers explained that they were a little confused as to why I was unsure about my decision to attend Boston College. I tried explain that it was because I wasn't finding people that felt like home in a descriptive way by using the photos on the wall to express the feeling.

It may be useful to explain how this has affected you in the past without noticing or if you have noticed this same behavior of yours after this incident outside of the team. Bringing in another example beyond the swimming pool could help to broaden your argument of why this story has made you who you are today.

I think it could be useful for your reader to understand your relationship with your father. Has a situation like this happened before? Were you punished by him after the incident? How did your relationship change because of this "trauma"? Answering these questions could provide a deeper exploration of the story.

I love this idea. I think more explicitly stating if you have found an answer to this question or not since being at BC might be useful to not leave this question unanswered in the reader's mind.

It could be interesting to explain how this fear may have changed after joining the fraternity. Has it made you feel like you have been able to live up to those expectations you feared you would not be able to reach? I think going into more detail about this could provide the reader a clearer understanding of you as a person and a deeper discussion of the story at hand.

I love the idea of these two worlds combining in one place. I think it could be interesting for the reader to understand if this experience has changed the way you interact with Boston College students or if it has made you see the campus itself in a new light.

This example does an amazing job to show both sides of viral shaming. These people think (because they haven't done sufficient research) that they are standing up for what they believe in, and Justine Sacco intended no harm in tweeting what she did but subsequently had her life ruined by shamers. I think it could be really effective to include another example or two from Twitter or another social media platform that highlights this idea of viral shaming.

I think it would be interesting to try and figure out how the amount of nicotine in vapes differs in its effects on the body than a regular cigarette. What physical or mental pleasures are these young kids getting out of vaping, scientifically, that would be different from smoking regular cigarettes?

I think you did a great job explaining the differences between the forms of communication by means of Facebook and Snapchat. However, I think you could even expand this statement by discussing other platforms in the body of your paper that prove how different Snapchat is from other social media.

I feel as though you go into detail about how Priscilla Road is "entrancing" because of its freeing qualities and its appealing "sense of abandonment." I think you should either solely focus on the beauty and serenity of this road or go into greater detail about what makes it so "repelling" because there is not much currently that supports that idea.

This paragraph has great popular culture references that the general public would understand and a general BC struggle that all students could relate to. While these references (and more) are great, I feel like you should find a way to target them more toward upperclassmen, as I would not guess that was your audience from this draft.

I think this passage does a great job of connecting your childhood forts to the way you feel in the basement. The reference to the fact that you could survive a natural disaster down there could definitely be expanded upon and connect to your idea of isolation. In what other ways does this basement make you feel like you are in a bunker, removed and safe from the rest of the world? I think the expansion of this idea could be really cool.

I think these few sentences of the conclusion do a great job of wrapping up some of your main arguments in the essay. However, I think you could expand more on answering the "So what?" question that Brian suggests we introduce in the conclusion. Maybe try to find a more elaborate, connected but new idea to expand upon here.