HONY Creative riting Piece and Revisions

Revision is different from editing because when you revise you are adding big parts like sentences to your writing but when you edit you mostly fix small spelling and grammar mistakes. I think I did a very good job revising because I added a lot to my writing when I revised .

 

 

 

My name is Anita. I’m originally from Syria but I moved to America to find safety and shelter. One day when I was living in Syria a terrorist group called ISIS came to our city called Aleppo. They took everything our family owned. They took our furniture, our silverware, our money, and they even threatened to kill me. That was the worst day of my life not only because ISIS took our belongings but mostly because when they stole our stuff my dad wanted to fight back. He grabbed a metal pan from the of the few remaining cabinets ISIS didn’t scrummage through yet. I hid in my room and got a little leather bag and put all of my possessions in. I took my, wallet, my phone, and squished in anything else I could find. When I came back out I saw my dad trying to hit the ISIS soldiers with the pan. One of the soldiers grabbed me by my shirt and pulled out a gun.

 

“Surrender,” shouted one of the soldiers. “Surrender yourself and your belongings. If you don’t we’ll kill your daughter!”

 

Tears trickled down my face and I started to squirm around in the soldiers tight grasp. I could see my dad screaming at the soldiers but I wasn’t paying any attention. All I could think about was the gun towering over me like a skyscraper. Then the arguing got louder and louder to the point wear my ears started to hurt really bad. Then the arguing turned into an old fashioned fist fight. Then things started to escalate and the one of soldier took out gun and opened fire in my home!!! By now I feel like I’m about to faint! I saw my mom run to go and hide in one of the already destroyed closets. The soldiers kept shooting and each time they did it made me feel so helpless. My hands and feet started to feel numb. The soldiers shot again but this time it my dad right smack of the face. He was murdered before my eyes. I froze for a second thinking about what had just happened. A few seconds past and then the soldier finally let go of me. I watched in horror as the soldiers took all our belongings. Then I immediately started crying. Once they left I asked my mom “What are we going to do?”

 

“I’m sorry sweetie but I have absolutely no idea,” she said, trying to be as calm as she could. I could tell she was devastated. She was twitching her hands and looked like she was about to start bawling. Neither of us said anything for the next few minutes but it felt like a hour.

 

“Ok,” I said softly. “I think we should move somewhere else that is safer.”

 

“That’s a good idea but where do you want to move?” she asked.

 

“We should move to the U.S!” I said cheerfully.

 

She thought for a minute and then said yes. I had heard so many great things about the U.S. like that you had the freedom of speech. She said let’s move to New York City. Sadly we could not go to the for another 2 years and we had to go on a waiting list just to become a refugee! It was such a long process.

 

my mom bought plane tickets to the U.S. Since ISIS stole practically all of our money we barely had enough money for the tickets. The last time we left Syria was three years ago when I was going to see my grandparents who live in Russia. On the flight I watched movies on my phone and talked to my mom about how excited I was to move from Syria. We also talked about how tragic it was that my dad died. When we got to NYC my mom called a few people to find a place to move. We decided to settle in midtown. 57 street to be exact. I’ve lived there for the past 15 years. I got to go to college at columbia university and I got a  bachelor’s degree in teaching. Now I’ve finished school and I work as a full time humanities teacher at P.S. 132. Moving to NY was a great experience. I went to bed knowing that my dad was looking down at me from heaven and thinking about what he would’ve said if he knew that we moved NY.