Reflection on Blog Writing

When I first read what Professor Chris Schaberg was planning, I kind of panicked. I wasn’t expecting a blog-style writing class. I don’t like change and this was a huge change from a normal writing class with three to four page papers due every week (I say “normal” because that is what all of my other writing classes are like). Don’t get me wrong, I hate writing essays because putting together a three to four page paper can take me anywhere from a couple hours to 24 hours (depending on if I know what I’m writing about). I also hate writing lengthy papers because I usually run out of steam well before I reach the minimum page requirement, and I end up adding fluff to the intro and conclusion to make it longer. So, I don’t know why the change from writing long essays to writing short blogs scared me.

For the first weeks, I churned out my blog entries like clockwork. I whipped out each one in under an hour and I thought “This class is going to be a breeze.” Then came the second week and the argumentative genre. The first blog entry of that week was easy to write, but the second and third entries were so hard to come up with. I sat at the computer screen for hours on end, and all I got for it was a soar butt. The rest of the blogs for weeks three, four, and five were a mix of easy and hard.

This class is similar to other English classes in the aspect that some writing assignments are a lot easier to write than other ones, depending on if you like what you are writing about. However, this class is a lot more enjoyable than my other English classes (but that’s probably more a reflection on Chris than on the class itself). I like the fact that the blog entries are relatively short because of the reason explained above (second to last line of first paragraph). I like how I am learning something new (how to blog) in an English class. I like how I can see an example of someone else’s post to get an idea on how to write my post. I like reading the comments on other people’s blogs. The fact that each person’s writing is made public to the class (instead of only the teacher reading your writing) allows classmates to get a much better sense of everybody else in the class.

Although I know why Chris made us comment on other people’s posts, I hated having to leave comments. He did it to make sure that we read each other’s blogs (at least I think that was his reason). I read almost all of the posts anyway, so I felt that the comment requirement was unnecessary. All I could think of for leaving a comment was “Great Post”, but I was forced to analyze and interpret the other person’s post to leave a more substantial post. Ok, when I was writing that last sentence I figured out why he wanted us to leave substantial comments, but I still hate doing them. They are just like peer evaluations, which I hate.

Overall, the blog-style writing was a very innovative way to teach the UWP 101 class. I am glad I signed up for Chris’ class instead of the other professors’ UWP 101 class.