I think that as a writer, I have grown a lot this year. I have been introduced to many different writing styles and authors, and it has opened my eyes to the world of writing. as I look over my blog posts, I really see how i have developed as a writer. As I look back at the book reviews that I have done, I see my progress in how I comprehend the books I have read. I like having my blog because I feel that the feedback that I get from my peers is very very helpful. It helps in the sense that I am getting feedback from people my age. It was also interesting when I looked at my blogs stats and saw which of my posts were the most viewed. To my surprise, my most viewed post was one of my first post and the first debate that we did in Mr. Sutherland’s class.
I really like having a blog, but sometimes finding ideas what to write about is difficult. A lot of the time I post on my blog because we are assigned to in our English class, but sometimes I decide to post freely. Whenever I decide to do that, I encounter one of two problems. I encounter writers lock where I get stuck in the middle of writing a post, or simply not knowing what to write about......See it just happened. I didn’t know what to write about thus the “.....”. Actually even this post is a blog assignment for my English class assigned by Mr. Sutherland, and I am still encountering writers block. Even though I do encounter writers block, I feel as if I actually learn from it. I learn from it because of the various ways that I overcome the writers block. Sometimes this means stopping and coming back to the writing, or simply taking a deep breath. These various techniques that I have learned by writing on my blog has not only helped me develop different strategies for writing, but I have developed strategies for overcoming obstacles overall in life.
I think that the more open minded writing I do on my blog is much different from more structured writing assignments like in writing class in one major way. On my blog, I am allowed to write about how certain things make me feel, and my opinions about those topics. I really like this type of writing much better because it fits me better. Trying to write about something that does not interest me or do research on something that does not interest me is a little difficult. Those are the type of assignments that I do not like very much, so in comparison I like the writing I am able to do on my blog much better. I think that as a person, having this blog has actually helped me handle with various life problems that I have had over the course of this school year. It has allowed me to get a lot of things off of my chest in more suttle ways, and I really feel like that has benefited me greatly as a person. Who knows, but maybe this has even helped me get better grades this year. I some ways I see some correlation in my blog posts and grades. In the beginning of the year, we ere posting a lot more and my grades were better in the first semester. This semester we did not post as much and my grades have not been as good a last semesters, but maybe that is just a coincidence. Who knows?
I am going to recall on a previous post of mine. Clouds & Sky Symbolism (Due: 3/11/11). In that post, I wrote:
Clouds and sky are a recurring theme throughout the book, that my classmates as well as myself picked up on. I believe that clouds and sky are a sign of freedom and hope to Esperanza. I feel like her hope has diminished throughout her life, because of emotional insecurity due to hormones and growing up. She discusses much insecurity about herself, and relationship status. She wants a man that will hold her and be there for her, and for the majority of the book she does not find the right person. On page 60-61, she writes this poem…
In this post, we were assigned to pick up on silent and non apparent themes with in a book, and that is what I posted about. That skill of picking up this type of symbolism is not a skill that I think I had last year in eighth grade.
Another post of mine that I recall is, “Why I agree with Justice Toailoa on Changing your Child's DNA”. In this post I said, “I think that one thing Justice could have added to her debate, was the very possible chance(s) of genetic mutation and other types of mental illness. By changing or messing with the child's DNA before it is born could leave to these genetic defects. I am going to use smoking as a example. When expecting mothers smoke while pregnant can cause birth defects, than imagine what tampering with their DNA could do. Other than that, I felt that justice's opening statement was very well rounded. The only thing that I would have changed was her evidence. I felt that there was no sources which was ok, but in order to make her arguments valid, sources are needed.” The reason why I found this post of mine special, is because of the fact that I was not only comprehending a book, or article, but a friends work. This is something that I have never done before.
These are the types of things that I found having a blog allows me to do and I am extremely happy that I have one. Overall, even if we are not assigned any blog posts next year, I strongly believe that I will use my blog for the rest of my life.
