Before English 250, I had never experienced writing blogs. The new technique of publishing, posting, and commenting on what I had read, never occurred to me to be a helpful tactic, but I was wrong. Over the past ten weeks, I have learned to analyze how I feel about a certain story, essay, play, etc.
As I started out, I was horrible at analyzing what I thought about certain things we read. I would have to say that my worst blog assignment was the very first one. Back in January, we had to pick out certain definitions that pertained to poems we read. My first blog was very short, I remember it taking me about five minutes to write, and it wasn’t well thought out. I just thought it was something to get easy points with, so I was going to just write whatever.
As time went on, I definitely got better at analyzing assignments. There was one blog assignment that I was particularly proud of and that was when I wrote about Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” It was my second posting, but I put a lot of thought into this one assignment. I talked about my own feelings about his lyrics, and brought some of my own history with the Vietnam War into this assignment. The feedback I received from my classmates amazed me. They were all very kind to what I had to say about the lyrics.
Sometimes, I was afraid to state what I thought, for the fear of being wrong, but I realized that my blog was called; “My Analysis” and these were my thoughts. When you write on your own blog, you can’t be wrong. Some people in our class went off the deep-end with some statements, but most of the time, you’re not going to be wrong. I mean your take of the story is going to be different than anyone else, because they are your own feelings.
Other blogs that I posted weren’t bad, but weren’t great. I remember writing about “Fiesta 1980”, and it was an ‘okay’ blog assignment. I only posted a blog assignment on the story, because it was the only one I liked that week. Some parts were funny, but the story just kind of made me upset about Yunior and his family. I just remember that I didn’t put much thought into that assignment at all.
Another assignment that I didn’t do so well on was the “Dead Man Laughing” essay. I really disliked that essay, so I didn’t have much to offer to the blog. I remember criticizing the whole entire essay. Looking back, that was wrong of me. No paper or assignment can be well written, unless you look at it from both sides. “There are always two sides to every story.” I should have found something that I liked in the essay. I think I was just too wrapped up in how Zadie Smith thought that death was funny, but looking back, that’s how she dealt with her father’s death.
After reading other people’s blog assignments, and re-reading the essay, I now know that.
I have also learned that blogs help you learn about your classmates and your teacher. The way people write, helped me ‘read’ what kind of person they were. People that wrote long tiresome blogs were very intellectual people. People that wrote funny quotes and told funny stories within the blogs were comedic people. Also, pictures were helpful. I will never forget the time I was caught looking at the black paint on the bottom of Professor Rouzie’s feet, wondering if it was frostbite, playing it off as though I thought it were paint!
Now that I have been analyzing publications for ten weeks, I have a new understanding for the blog assignments. I understand that it is a tool, used to help further my knowledge. The comments that people wrote were used to encourage me and help me do better on the next assignment. Looking back, I am glad that we used blogs in class.
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