Blog writing has been a mildly pleasant experience, however I can't feel too good about endorsing assigned writing topics. It's just something I've never particularly enjoyed. However, there were a few topics that I was able to convert into something I was thinking about lately. I enjoyed the song analysis, sentence style, cool writings, and the power of the image blog posts. These all had very open topics. I did not enjoy the ones with specific writing instruction, like finding to persuasive websites, the initially unacceptable claim, and this blog reflection. I felt restricted, unoriginal, and commenting was painful because everyone's post looked almost exactly the same.
Mandatory commenting: understandably necessary in a classroom setting, but the product ends up forced, insincere, and useless to the author. If there was a specific post that I enjoyed, I commented on meaningfully without first thinking, "ok, now only one left."
Despite my annoyances, the format itself is 1000 times more useful to me than a traditional assignment. I like people to read what I write.
I have to agree about assigned writing topics. I find it much more fulfilling to come up with not only the argument on your own, but also the question and topic. To me, I just feel more connected to the assignment and actually enjoy doing it rather than just feeling like I am checking off boxes on a tax form.
ReplyDeletetrue that. there were some that i actually put a lot of thought and energy into because it was something i could internalize. Just writing because it was assigned did little. but since the other classes were all just writing because it was assigned this is tons better.
ReplyDeleteI understand about the commenting thing. I don't think that there wasn't a time after I made a comment that "Ok, only left to do." A lot of the time I didn't like the commenting. Occasionally it was helpful but a lot of the time it wasn't. People just tended to repeat what everyone else wrote.
ReplyDeleteI like assigned topics because it forces me to write, and in the process I generally learn something as I go.
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