Blog about Blogging

The blogging assignment is very helpful to me by it motivates me to read the text closely. My book is loaded with marked passages and notes in the margins, most of which are made before attending class. The aspect I like most about blogging is our posts are due before we begin discussing that section of the text. At the beginning of the year I wasn't sure if I liked this because Shakespeare can be difficult to read, therefore it would make it difficult to write about before hearing class discussion on that particular section of the play. The reason I like having the blogs due before class discussion is I can put my own ideas and interpretations without being scrutinized. I tend to accept other people's interpretations after hearing arguments for it in class. Since I was in junior high or maybe earlier, I always seem to have a not well accepted interpretation or the less accepted interpretation of a text. In junior/senior high I never argued against the teacher's interpretation of a text; now I have the opportunity to do so. In the blogs, opposed to formal papers I am willing to put out some less accepted interpretations. I sometimes do not have a strong enough argument for my ideas or opinion on certain aspects of the text to write an entire formal paper, but these ideas can show up in the blog.

I like this informal aspect of the blog. After re-reading my posts I realized my first two posts were very formal and much like a paper, while my 3rd post is a little less formal. In my 3rd post I make references to modern 21st century culture. I make a reference to Lil Wayne, and the television show 24; both references would not make a formal paper. In my future posts I plan on incorporating modern culture references as well as textual evidence. As a future teacher, I think junior high and high school students need references to modern culture to help them with interpretation of the texts, especially with Shakespeare. Most high school students hate Shakespeare with passion, but by pointing out how much Shakespeare's work relates to today I hope to lessen students hatred for him. If I continue to make references to modern culture in these blogs, it could be a good place to look back to for ideas to incorporate when I'm teaching Shakespeare to my students.

The content of my blogs tend to be all over the place, but with a few commonalities. My blogs tend to focus on specific characters and their characterization. A common theme that reoccurs in different ways is the theme of public perception. In my blogs I discuss the characters Antonio, the Duke (Measure for Measure) and the Henrys. After reading my blogs I found all these characters have one thing in common they all are most concerned about public perception. All these characters' actions are for the most part to make themselves look good and to be positively remembered forever.

My favorite post is my third post mainly because I made a prediction that comes 100% true in the next play. In the post I discuss Prince Hal and his friends. I stated "He (Prince Hal) probably will have to drop the friends he hangs with now to be king." In Henry V, Hal has nothing to do with Falstaff anymore, in which Falstaff never appears in the play and dies offstage from a broken heart caused by King Henry V. My correct prediction shows the more you read Shakespeare, it becomes easier to follow and know what his plays is going to set up for the ending. I feel as a class we can now better answer the question from the first day of class "Why Shakespeare?"