For those of you who have known me for many years, you will know that I am not a big fan of change. In preschool I would cry for hours on end when we would try a new activity or go to the classroom next door to watch a movie because I like continuity. I am a creature of habit so of course, when I first heard about this blog project I was a little uneasy about starting something like this. My skepticism soon vanished as I saw not only how much fun it is to blog, but also how much of an educational benefit the blog is. The blog has been a great way to improve my confidence as a writer. At first, I was terrified of the thought of putting my writing out in the open for all to scrutinize. I was worried about how my writing would be perceived or ridiculed on the World Wide Web. However, over time I began to gain more confidence in my ability as a writer and I began to not be so timid towards showing others my work. Knowing that each blog entry will be posted online for all to read and see has really helped me learn how to produce something that I will be able to proudly attach my name to. Also, the amount of repetition helps us all to improve our English skills. By writing so many entries and making comments on other people’s blogs, we have been able to explore and experiment with the English language. This exploration and experimentation are essential to progressing towards our common goal of becoming better all around writers. Because like many, I do not just want to be able to write a solid argument essay, but I want to improve my control on the English language as a whole. As Malcolm Gladwell illustrates in Outliers, there is a 10,000 hour rule that all people must meet before achieving success in a given area. He states that one must practice a specified subject area for 10,000 hours before they can truly be successful. Now, the blog may not quite satisfy the 10,000 hour requirement for English (but maybe the datasheet will?), but it certainly gives us a start as we move into our years of education beyond High School. I am thankful for the amount of repetition that the Blog has allowed me to complete in a fun and interesting way. Additionally, the blog has helped transition me from someone who hated English and took it because I had to, to someone who looks forward to class and does not mind writing assignments anymore. Before junior year, I absolutely hated writing papers and essays for English. However, my time with Ms. Serensky has helped me to reach the point where now I really almost enjoy writing papers and assignments. When I talked to Ms. Serensky after my junior year, I told her that one of my hopes for AP English was that it would take away that amount of stress that comes over me when I think about an English paper I must write. I must say that so far, I am coming very close to that goal. Not all of the success of meeting this goal can be attributed to the blog, but it certainly helped me to write creatively and try to write about ideas that interest other viewers.
The amount of blogs in the world has reached 133 million recently and so the popularity of this relatively new way to express ideas is undeniable. It has been very fun and interesting to be a part of this new phenomenon and have my own blog. I understand why so many people have their own blogs, because it is very exciting to post my own ideas and then compare them to the ideas of others. This brings me to my next point, I have really grown so fond of the whole blogging experience because I like learning from my peers and being exposed to their creative and intellectual viewpoints. I find it very interesting to read about the very smart topics that my fellow classmates choose to blog about each week.
I have only found one small difficulty with the blog project; sometimes it is difficult to come up with two interesting topics in a week. Blogging is a lot of fun when one has a creative or unique idea to write about. But when one has nothing, it can be a little painful to try to make a story out of some small event or occurrence. There is no real solution for this but I thought I should mention the only small downfall of blogging.
As is evident from the length of this entry, I have really enjoyed blogging and I am thankful for the educational benefits my classmates and I have gained from this new social media outlet.
Thomas-
ReplyDeleteI also began my final blog discussing how I dislike change... the parallels between our lives continue. But, like you, I felt nervous because I did not know what to expect, but then I ended up enjoying the blog project. I never really thought about people scrutinizing my writing, but I guess that is because there is nothing I can really do to dramatically change my writing skills. Plus blogs are stress free- something that is very important to me because I stress out so much about formal writings in English. But through this, similar to your situation, blogging has boosted my confidence in my writing skills and will hopefully help me in the future.