Blogging Around: The Blogging Process

I really agreed with Margot's post about the blogging process throughout sophomore year. Margot talked about wishing we had the freedom to choose our blogging topics and how blogging gave us the opportunity to continue discussing topics that we had talked about in class. The following is my comment on Margot's blog:

Margot,
Great post! I agree with you about wishing we could blog about anything we wanted regarding English. I also found it cumbersome to blog when I couldn't think of anything to write about that would fit the prompt we were given. I think it would be beneficial to our thinking process if we were able to have more freedom in terms of what we wanted to blog about. I also enjoyed blogging because I was able to rant about a topic that I might not have gotten to talk about in class. Overall, I think blogging was beneficial and helped us to express our feelings about certain English topics.



The next blog I read was Kyle's blog. In general, I agreed with most of what Kyle said. Kyle's blog post said that we should have more freedom in what we blog about and that this experience was lacking online community interaction and he thinks that should be added to this experience next year. His blog also said that by not having freedom to choose our topics, these aren't really blogs, but rather online journal responses. Kyle has created his own personal blog this year, as well.

Kyle,
Great post! I agree with a lot of what you said. I also said in my blog post that I felt that some of the given blog prompts were too forced. I thought it was interesting that you said that with this type of assignment, we could basically email Mr. Allen our "journal response" each week and get the same effect as the blog. In some ways, I agree with you because basically we are being told to write a response to a question and the only unique thing is that it's online. However, in another way, this does make our response more accesible to other people. If we just turned in our responses to Mr. Allen, no one would really be able to read them without going and getting our responses from Mr. Allen. I'm glad that this experience has helped to inspire you to start your own blog. I've read your personal blog and really enjoy it! Finally, I agree with you that adding more online community interaction would be beneficial to this experience. We only really looked at other students' blogs when we did the "Blogging Around" prompt and online community interaction is a big part of the blogging experience. Great post!
-Emily

Metacognition: The Blogging Experience

Blogging this year in English class was a very unique experience for me and was quite different than how I expected it to be. At the beginning of the year, I wasn't quite sure what we would be blogging about. However, as the year went on, I learned we would be blogging more about specific processes and our thinking in them. This is something that I would like to work better. For chemistry class, we are able to blog about anything we want. I think we could incorporate some more blog prompts that gave the students more freedom about what they want to blog. For example, there is the blog prompt "iMedia" but we never focused on that much. I think there could also be a blog prompt about things we find interesting in the news. This could be called "In Today's News" or something like that. I think I would find blogging more enjoyable if I had more freedom in the topic that I blogged about. We could of course still keep English class related topics, such as "Metacognition" and "Best of the Week", but I would find it enjoyable if some more diverse blogging topics were added and assigned. However, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed some of the prompts that were assigned. I really enjoyed "iMedia" and "Blogging Around". I didn't necessarily enjoy "Metacognition", "Best of the Week/Day", or "What If?", but I think those were all important prompts in terms of helping us reflect on what we had learned or experienced. I am pleasantly surprised with my blogging experience from this past year. I feel as though I have truly reflected on certain things we have discussed in class, specific processes we have gone through, and have made connections from things in class to the outside world. Blogging has given my classmates and me the opportunity to continue a conversation (that started in class) outside the classroom. Another thing that I have liked about this blogging process is how we have been graded. We have not been graded subjectively on our blogs. I feel that this is good because our blogs should be a place where we should feel free to express ourselves and not worry about the grade. If we follow the assigned prompt, then we get full points. This is good because it does not out stress on what we write. We just reflect on the process in any way which we choose. Overall, I would say that the blogging experience in general pleasantly surprised me and was a positive experience.

Best of Week: Point of View

This week in English, we focused a lot on different points of view in the novel "Life and Times of Michael K." Mr. Allen made the point that point of view is very important when writing stories and especially in "Life and Times of Michael K." I had never really worried too much about point of view in books before Mr. Allen talked about this. However, now I see that the point of view can really change a book and it's meaning. For example, Michael K couldn't narrate the book because the book is about the fact that Michael doesn't know what his life is about or his master narrative, therefore Michael could not be the narrarator and tell the story of his life. In Part II, there is a different point of view and it is written from a doctor's journal. This gave us different insights than Part I did because it is written by a different person. The idea that point of view greatly affects a story has made me consider my writing in a new way. I have never written a story from multiple different points of view. By discussing point of view in the depth that we did in class this week, I have been able to consider using different points of view in my writing and have learned how great writers incorporate point of view into their writing pieces. It also helped me expand my knowledge of different writing styles. By using different view points, readers are able to gather different pieces of information about the plot and characters as the story progresses. I will definitely consider point of view next time I write something.

Blogging Around

My first comment is in regards to Jamie's blog post. Her post was about the movie "Once" and how it provided more of a real perspective towards love. It talked about logical and illogical love. I found her blog post very interesting and it raised some ideas about love and the movie that I hadn't previously thought of. Here's my comment:

"Jamie,

I agree with you that "Once" seemed more real because it was produced in a documentary style. I was very surprised that the characters returned to their "logical partners" and did not get together in the end as well. However, I think that you made a good point that sometimes the logical thing is the hardest thing to do, especially when it comes to love. Sometimes love conquers all and people turn to their illogical sides. This is what makes great stories such as "Romeo and Juliet". "Once" definitely showed some different perspectives towards love."

The next blog I read was Marika's. In her post she talked about our english class' idea to do a service project together before school ended. She also talked about the fact that we have been talking about doing a service project in spanish for the past year but it has been all talk and no walk. Here's my comment:

"Marika, Great blog post! I was actually thinking about this yesterday. We have been talking about doing a spanish service project since last year but we have never organized anything. I brought up the idea for a service project in english because I thought we would have a good chance of actually getting our act together and acting on a service project idea. It is so true that it is much easier to talk about doing a service project than actually organize one. I hope everyone submits ideas soon and we can get a project together before the end of the school year."