Discovering that I’d have to write a review on the blog definitely changed the way I read the books assigned for the semester. Usually when I have assigned readings, there are specific things a professor is looking for from a student to understand and answer. However, the type of reading we did in this class I felt was on a way more personal level and students were able to share what specifically stood out to them and why. I thought this aspect of the reading and blogging kept it very interesting due to the fact that everyone was able to blog about what they personally got from the reading. This created a thread of creative blog posts which were ultimately very interesting to read. I also thought beneficial as well because to be able to hear from other students something they felt stood out greatly in the reading could inform me of something that I might of missed or misinterpreted.
I at first felt a little stressed and intimidated at the fact that other students would be reading my blog posts on a daily basis. I was only used to handing in my writing to a professor for him or her to read confidentially. I never had to blog for a college course before. I thought the possibility of having a wider audience would make me become more hesitant on certain things I wanted to share, but that ended up not being the case at all. The casual writing style that I used to write my reviews was extremely refreshing and at times was even therapeutic. Being an English major, I am more than used to writing traditional papers, so it was really nice to be encouraged to write in my own casual writing style when reflecting on the assigned readings.
I tried to read my classmates’ blog posts as often as I could because more often than not, they all had very interesting things to share. I truly did enjoy the aspect of having a class blog a lot more than I thought I would have and I would like to see it utilized in more college courses.
