Extra-credit blog

1. What were your expectations when you began writing this blog together? How did you think it would work?
When we started this blog post, we had the intentions of relating our readings to things that we enjoy today, such as the TV show Gossip Girl. We expected that our readings in the class would relate to our interests today, however that wasn’t necessarily always the case.
2. Did writing the blog together work as you had hoped it would? Why or why not? What would you do the same? What would you do differently?
I think so! Every week we took turns writing a blog post and a reply and I think the work was divided up evenly which made it fair. We would do the same thing over again if we had to. Although, I missed a week, which is why I volunteered to do the extra credit blog post to earn back those points. We each have a different style of writing and views to bring to the table so I think us both doing posts gave our blog diversity. I am more of a summary and response writer on this blog, whereas Ruben has the brilliant ability to pick apart the texts and throw in some historical facts and even challenge the author’s viewpoints.
3. How closely did you adhere to the "blog manifesto" that you wrote early in the process? (Your blog manifesto was your first blog post.) Did it help the way that you thought about the topics you wrote about? Why or why not?
We didn’t stay close to our blog manifesto. We kind of did our own thing, writing our initial thoughts and feelings on the readings instead of focusing on relating it to something we liked. I think it worked out better this way, because our replies were honest and they contributed to the class discussion over blog posts, which made it easy for other classmates to reply to us and understand what our thoughts were.
4. Overall, what did you learn from this blog assignment?
I learned a lot about the kind of reader I am through this blog post, and through reading other blog posts because I was able to see how others interpreted the same text I read. It was interesting to see how other people connected their ideas to the text in ways I never even considered. I think having an open space such as the blog is really helpful because it allows students to see how other people read texts and opens up questions or ideas we may have that we wouldn’t have thought of without reading someone else’s ideas.
5. Other thoughts and comments?
I learned from this blog post that using the internet is a really great way to have students do homework. Ruben and I are both future English teachers, so we are always analyzing our professor’s assignments and the effectiveness of them so one day we might be able to use the same idea in our classroom. I think having a blog post is really effective because since our generation is obsessed with the internet, it made doing our homework on a social media site seem more fun.