Final Reflective essay

Colin Forbes
5/24/11
Mr. Sutherland
2nd period

Final Reflective Essay

I think that my favorite post of this semester was my Vignette  project in which i wrote about small, yet important events from my life. These events included my parents divorcing, my neck surgery, the effects of the surgery, and going to a new school. I think that this is my favorite post because it is the one that I spent the most time on. On this essay, I was the most descriptive I have ever been in my writing on a blog. For example, when talking about coming home from the hospital, I was descriptive about a burrito.

“One push and I could just fall over. When I had the burrito, it felt like a gourmet dish. The nasty food from the hospital did not compare to even a mediocre burrito. The beans, rice and cheese, placed perfectly in to the burrito felt like heaven on my taste buds.”

Out of all of the vignettes, the above was my most descriptive. In others, I used different styles of writing such as writing with short sentences and showing, not telling. The inspiration for this assignment came from these events in my life that have significance. From this assignment, there is little behind the scenes, except from the actual events that happened. It was an assignment for everyone in the class that stemmed from the book “The House on Mango Street”, by Sandra Cisneros. To write this essay, I had to do a lot of brainstorming to remember important events in my life. For me, this is kind of difficult because many  events blend and relate to others. For example, when I wrote about my neck surgery, I also wrote about how it felt to return home from the hospital.

This year, I also enjoyed writing response posts.I feel like writing these posts helped me become a better thinker by seeing the other sides in topics and looking for areas where their argument or point they are trying to make is flawed. I think that the many response posts that I have written over the year have made me a much  better writer and reader. To respond to people’s posts, I have to read their post thoroughly to see what they are talking about. In December, I responded to Sam about the book “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.”

“I agree with Sam that Christopher has grown over the course of the book. In the beginning, he would just groan to drown his problems out but as the book progressed, he started to become more and more adaptive to new challenges. When he has to find the train station, he breaks out of his comfort zone and asks a lady how to get there. Also, when he is at the train station, he gets his ticket and it is yellow. No matter how much he detests yellow, he has to deal with it to find his mother.” Here is the link to this post.

This post here shows that I read and added on to Sam’s claim that Chris grew over the course of the novel. I provided examples of times when he needed to overcome his disability to complete tasks, such as finding his mother. To respond to this post, I had  to read it, analyze it,, and write what I think and either agree or disagree with his claim.
In my opinion, response posts are the most entertaining to write. Over the year, I got to see how other people felt about many various topics, from controversial issues such as marijuana to smaller issues such as which city is better. For me, I find these as entertaining and fun to read as well as respond to. One of my favorite posts or batch of responses were the responses about Justin Beiber. Many people chose to enter this never ending battle on whether he is really beneficial for America and its youth. This excerpt from one of my responses shows how we were not only allowed to have fun with our blogs but also write about issues or topics that interested us or at least were entertaining to us at that time.

“Justin beiber sings songs abut "true" love. I dont see the reason why boys are obsessed with him. Also girls. His voice is higher than most of the population and he doesn't even sing well. His voice is just pitch corrected. When Justin Beiber's voice changes, his career will  change. Also, you say you would have a job if you were trying to be like him. i Don't get this.”

I think that from response posts, I learned a lot about seeing arguments from two different sides, even if they are about topics such as Justin Beiber.

I enjoy having a blog. It has allowed me to express what I feel, even if it is a mandatory assignment. Having a blog gives me a way to share my thoughts with the world. For example, it has allowed me to post what I think about a college debate and see what other people said about it. This excerpt shows what I thought about an article. After I posted it, I looked at what others said.

“In his article, he uses studies and numbers to back up his viewpoints. He also writes professionally and does not try to say "you're wrong" to people who disagree with him. I also think this is the most persuasive because he provides reasonable arguments. For example, he said at a selective institution, a student is surrounded by talented and high achieving peers.”

This response was a response to a 7-way debate about elite colleges. To respond to it, I chose which was the most persuasive and which one I agreed with.

Overall, I think that having a blog has been a great experience for me. Not only has it allowed me to share and defend my feelings and views, but it has also allowed me to become interconnected with the whole world. I am glad that this year I got to make a blog because it has been a great experience.