About my Blogging

Blogging is something that I’ve never had to do for a class before. The only assignment that I’ve had that was close to blogging is discussion boards for online classes that I’ve taken. When the blogging assignment was first presented to our class, I’ll have to admit I was a bit nervous. Most of the time I have a hard time interpreting Shakespeare’s work, so writing about it before discussing it in class really freaked me out. With that said and done, I think that the blogging has helped me develop my own ideas about the plays that I wouldn’t have necessarily voiced in class after hearing what my peers had to said about the material. I think I am very easily influenced when I feel unsure about material, so I tend to just cling to another peer’s ideas and find textual evidence to support. Blogging allows me to respond with idea that I have developed on my own. This is why I always write and post my blog before reading what anyone else has written.
I believe my blogging has become more focused over the first half of the semester. For the first blogging assignment I was unsure about what was ok to write about, so I found myself writing about multiple ideas and thoughts I was having about The Merchant of Venice. I focused on Antonio, Shylock, and even briefly on Portia’s father. My ideas were all over the place when they should have been more focused on one main idea. I was using the blog to sort out my ideas rather then presenting a main idea I believed to be the most important.
I believe that by the second blog, I was more conscious of having to focus on one main idea that I had picked out in the reading. I focused on the question of approval of Angelo by the Duke, and brought up the actions of the Duke which to the reader made it seem like there was a lack of approval. I believe that in this blog I relied too much on quotes from the text. I realize now that textual evidence is important, but too much of it can just make the point you are trying to make more confusing.
My most recent blog, which really was quite a few weeks ago due to breaks, seems to be my strongest blog I’ve made so far. I believe this is in part because I really enjoyed reading Richard the Second even though it was a bit confusing. I focused on the idea of fairness, and how the characters in the play were not fair at all. I liked writing about this idea because I felt that it was a different way to look at the reading.
For me the blogs seem to be working the right way. I feel my blogs are getting stronger as I am getting more comfortable with writing and posting for the class to read. I think that the blog assignment is a great way to get everyone in the class participating, even the shy people like myself, and contributing their own ideas about the plays we are reading.