Reflection Essay

Blogger

Throughout this quarter, I have been writing post entries in my blog on Google. This blog allowed me to respond to numerous things I read in class, saw in class, or even discussed in class. This also allowed me to read others thoughts and feelings about the same things because my other classmates also posted these entries on their blogs. Looking over my post during this quarter, I can see a pretty big change in my writing. When I first started writing these blogs, I was a little rusty. I hadn’t taken an English class since freshman year and I kind of was a little sloppy. But as the quarter went on, I got used to writing again and my blog entries got a lot better. I was able to identify myself in my blog and truly express how I felt about the particular assignment. Another thing that improved was my spelling and grammatical errors. Throughout my blogs I noticed this was occurring and I also got a few comments about this problem. After I saw this, I started to double check these things every time I wrote. This allowed me to have better posts. This was my biggest weakness in my writing. Blogging this quarter allowed me to practice and improved in this area. This further leads me to believe that my stronger posts are at the end. The specifics post about the movie and book Food Inc. because I had worked on my writing and I had finally got use to writing again. This is mostly because I wasn’t really sure on how to write in a blog type of setting at first. So, I started looking at this blog as more of a reflection journal. As I got used to writing in this style I started to really opening up which allowed me to improve throughout the weeks.

In my writings on my blog, I did realize that it was a public discourse but I didn’t really believe any one was really reading it. I focused my writings toward the audience that I knew for sure would be reading it, my peers in class and my professor. I tried to aim most of my writing to relate to my audience by using certain types of words, or talking about certain topics that I know would catch their eye. For example, the certain parts from the movie Food Inc. that almost everybody in class had a problem with or even the certain chapters from Lost Mountain that everybody liked. This allowed me to relate to my particular audience. I imagined my audience was my peers and my professor and that’s why I wrote a certain way. Although I am sure others might have taken a look at my blog too. I should have opened my audience aim up a little bit throughout the quarter but I never really did because I didn’t think anybody would be reading my blog.

As I said before, my peers in class also had blogs. During class, I would read a few and comment on what they had to say about that specific assignment. This allowed me to show how my post related to each specific post they wrote. I also could add in how I felt about what they are writing in their blog. This gave these specific people whose post I commented on a little contribution from me. They were able to see how I felt about what they were saying and whether or not it related to me. It also allowed me to give them tips on how to improve their rough drafts they posted or even give them advice about their topic choices. This was a good incentive for them and allowed them to see what others thought about what they were writing. This also leads me to the fact that people also commented on my blog posts. I actually really liked this because it showed me that people were actually interested in what I was saying or how I felt. It also really helped me when I wasn’t sure about a topic or my rough draft that I posted. My peers and my professor were able to help me by making comments on whether or not it looked good and also what changes I could make to better my final paper. This really contributed to my overall writing in the blog and also the papers I turned in during class.

Overall this blog really helped me with my writing throughout the whole quarter. It also helped me open up and really express how I felt about things we were learning in class. It allowed me to reflect on the readings, films and presentations we had for class. It also benefitted me because it gave me more understanding of what these things were about. Being able to look at people’s blogs allowed me to actually take in everything. If there was something I didn’t get or understand I could look at other posts and maybe get a better understanding. In conclusion, as you can see having this blog really helped me during this class. It allowed me to express my feelings, work on strength in my writing, and see what others thought about my posts. I also was able to look at my peer’s blogs and express on theirs how I felt about what they were writing. In reflecting about this process, I figured out how important this blog has been in to me, especially in understanding my writing during the course work.