Ashley Taylor

Ms. Trotter
Brit. Lit P.3
1 November 2016
Artifact Write Up
I believe taking any situation in life one step at a time.
1. Anxiety and extreme stress filled me during everyday of my sophomore year. I
would wake up, go to school, play tennis until seven, come home, and do homework until
midnight or even sometimes later. An overwhelming feeling of hopelessness consumed
me but amidst the chaos of one of these nightly battles, my grandma posed the question
How do you eat an elephant?. With her soft voice she replied, One bite at a time and
from that moment on, my mindset has been dramatically changed for the better.
2. Before this moment, I had never thought of handling stress from this particular
perspective. This analogy stuck with me and caused me to truly contemplate how to
effectively handle situations in life.
3. When she initially told me this I brushed it off as just another pep talk from a
family member but as the night and days went on, I continuously thought about it and
realized its true importance and application to my life.
4. Organization and set plan making has become a regular aspect in my day in order
to space my time and essentially take everything in life one step at a time. Also this
particular phrase calms me down in stressful situations and reassures myself that
everything will be okay in the end.
My I Believe Artifact
I composed a slam poem for my artifact and recorded myself presenting it. To begin, I am
quite familiar with poetry so I decided to focus on this particular creative choice. The ongoing

metaphor regarding the storm came from the idea that the darkness of stress and anxiety in life is
only temporary before the sun rises to illuminate again. After I had this direction in mind, I
began incorporating it into my belief statement of taking life one step at a time. The challenge I
faced was tieing in the key elephant element that ultimately inspired this belief. I feel that
through poetry, I am able to show how I view aspects of life via my use of colorful language and
abundance of analogies and metaphors.