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Haley Christopher learns the value of patience during a visit with her grandparents, in her essay “Good Things Need Time.”

Students in Rebecca Himschoot’s fifth-grade class wrote “This I Believe” essays over the winter. The assignment was based on NPR’s well-known series of the same name by producer Jay Allison.

A “This I Believe” essay is not an opinion piece; it is a statement about a personal transformation unique to the author.