A look at the past

When I first heard about our blog assignments in January I was not very excited. After setting up my blog and writing a few of the first posts I realized how cool the blog assignment really was. It gave me a chance to express how I felt towards a certain issue and allowed for others to give me feedback. The fact that the blogging is public and everyone in your English classes could access it gave it a unique twist. I found myself double checking everything I wrote to make sure my opinions were clearly stated and easily readable. When the comments from other students began to roll in I felt like I was actually able to reach my audience. It made me feel good when people agreed with my points. I had always felt like a lousy writer; I am alright I guess, but to get feedback with people agreeing with my points felt rewarding in a way. I wrote the blog posts as if I would be addressing the general public.
While reading through my blogs from earlier in the quarter I didn’t notice a difference between my writing styles. I can tell you that I have never written on a blog let alone written anything that was going to be read by many people. I wrote my posts with a consistent style because I knew that many people could view and comment on them. I tried my best to point out my opinions to provoke a response from my audience.
My best blog post was the first Food Inc assignment. This was my best because I made sure to communicate exactly how I felt. It can be hard to eat healthy in college due to a minimum budget, laziness, and unawareness. I knew that most of my peers are not aware of the foods they eat and i knew that we all pretty much have similar eating habits. With this knowledge I could communicated my exact responses to Food Inc. i also knew that I could most likely relate to someone else in the class thus provoking a response. My response to Food Inc touched on many striking issues which contributed to the responses I got. The issues that seemed to stick out in the majority of my received comments were about the fact that most people are not aware of how are food gets in front of us. The comments I received that were about Americans unawareness of the quality of food supported my initial opening remarks about how sad it is that the food corporations are keeping this knowledge from us. I reiterate this statement at the end of my post by saying how childhood and adulthood obesity in America is rising faster and faster. I even related it to the same effects as an epidemic. I think this comment really resonated with people who read my blog post because most people ignore or overlook the potential negative impact obesity can have on our nation. Another popular comment that was posted in response to my Food Inc post was that people felt disgusting and a need to change diet habits.
My weakest post was the second Food Inc post. I didn’t receive any comments and I think this was because I didn’t proof read it well enough. After rereading it before I wrote this essay I noticed that it is filled with run on sentences and horrible grammar. I even have some misspelled words and incorrect word usage. I believe this made it hard for the reader to understand exactly what I was trying to convey.
Using the course blog to discuss topics and readings that we went over in and out of class allowed for us to engage each other in a different way than in most classroom settings. In the classroom people are hesitant to speak out, but on the blog we were assigned to respond, and since our writings were public, people put more time and care into what they wrote. Discussing each issue on our blogs and then receiving comments back from our peers allowed for a more in-depth conversation on the subjects. It also brought forth some points that we may have overlooked while going over the initial materials.
While responding to others posts, I tried my best to find two opinions, one that I agreed with and one that I opposed. I did this with hopes to vary my comments and provide the author with unbiased responses. I also made an effort to criticize constructively and to only suggest different ways of thinking about a certain issue. I was polite and positive and I think that made my comments helpful.