Jessica Green

Ms. Katt Blackwell

ENG. 1023.13

May 2, 2007

Essay Exam

            I am a student writer who appreciates receiving commentary on my pieces.  Getting different perspectives, whether positive or negative (though I refuse to see a negative comment as a bad comment if it will benefit me in later writings), from students, teachers, and friends helps me to develop my skills as a writer such as recognizing when I have failed to swim out into the ideas that have flowed from fingers onto the keyboard or when I seemed to have unconsciously strayed away from the initial topic.  It is this reason that I found much interest in the use of a blog to communicate, turn in assignments, and have discussions between the instructor and my classmates.  I the blog very beneficial when we were given an assignment and I had no idea where to begin with my writing.  Although, I must admit that at times I may have felt bummed about writing for so many assignments and as if my passion for writing was fading, I now realize that the blog has been an effective tool in helping me become a netliterate. 

            One great attribute of WordPress is that it is an open network in which people with or without a WordPress account could give feedback on a blog.  What makes this a nice feature is that it enables a writer to receive commentary from a wide range of people who may have different points of view, interpretations, opinions, or advise.  Writers may even get the honor of receiving feedback from an author of a piece they were writing about, which can give a writer a chance to find out exactly why an author has a particular view on a topic.  I, myself, received this very honor.  I wrote a paper discussing my views on Tim Wu’s, “Does You Tube Really Have Legal Problems?” and Monroe Anderson’s, “It’s Time to Legalize Marijuana in
Illinois!”  Then, about four days later, I received a comment on my “You Tube and Marijuana” post from Tim Wu himself.  It gave me much pleasure to receive notes from an author because I never thought such a thing was possible.  This, indeed, inspired me to continue doing the best possible writing I could in my blogs so that I could possibly obtain more commentary from studious professionals. 

            When I was stricken with writer’s block, I could easily check out a classmate’s page to see what they were able to write, and my thought process began cranking its’ gears again.  I may have used the blogs of my classmates quite often as a resort when I honestly had no idea how I felt about legal and ethical issues such as the legalization of marijuana or special health treatments on the mentally disabled.  But then again, the purpose of this blog is to see the opinions and interpretations of others and use them as a means of discovering one’s own standing on various issues, is it not?

            To make sure that I would enjoy all aspects of my blogging experience, I tried to keep in mind that in some way, I would benefit from it all.  However, the only thing that I would have like to have seen more of was student-to-student commenting.  It seems as though most of my classmates used the posts of others to help them write their own papers, I could tell this because of the similarities in some of my classmates’ posts.  However, I saw that the majority of them did not bother to comment on those classmates’ posts about how their post inspired them.  I find myself to be one of those.  I wish I would have taken more time to write to the classmate whose post helped my thinking gears to start turning again, I’m sure it would have been beneficial to that student in that they might have received a confidence boost in their writing.   

            Overall, I believe I gained a positive experience from using the blog to further my skills as a writer.  I see how giving and receiving personal points of view can help a writer better their skills as a writer.  It is for that reason that I won’t not continue to blog in the future, whether for personal reasons or for academic reasons.  There is no doubt that I will use blogging in the future because it will help me in my higher level college courses in which I will have to write many papers and would appreciate feedback from others.  It will also be my way of expressing my opinions, interpretations, and views in a place where the whole world can see, since our society is becoming so dependant on technology and just about everyone will soon be using the internet to advance their learning and become netliterates, as I have started to develop into.