Over the course of the trimester, I have come to gradually like my blog posts more and more. At the beginning of tri 2 I thought my post were something a 7th grader would be capable of writing, as they were all mainly reflections or focused on very basic ideas about my books. By the last few blogs of trimester 2 I was happy with how they were turning out. They were covering harder topics, digging deeper into the story and asking harder questions. I can definitely tell that I have grown as a writer and a reader over the past 12 weeks.
My writing during the first few weeks of blogging was very broad, and didn’t focus on just one element from the text. This can be seen in my post Gone With The Wind Vocabulary. In this post I am talking about the vocabulary in the book, and how that affects the theme, the setting and the context of the story. I specifically state, “When vocabulary like this is used in the book, it makes the theme and context of the story make more sense. The setting of the book is in the South during the Civil War.” I go on to talk more about the setting, completely ignoring the theme and setting elements, and then at the end of the post I ask the reader, “Do you think vocabulary is important in a book? If so, what part of the story does it impact the most?” In my post, I didn’t narrow down the topic enough to ask this question. There is no evidence in my writing that vocabulary impacts either theme, the context of the story or the setting.
I really tried to improve my writing by narrowing down my focus and further developing the element that I chose. I think I show a more narrow focus in my post The Fire and The Whip. In this post I focused on only the symbolism of Scarlett and Rhett. I used my knowledge of the characters and evidence I got from the book to prove that Scarlett and Rhett were best fit to be represented by the objects I thought were most like them. In one line from the blog I state, “Rhett Butler is a whip. An item people don't like associating with or using, but they do anyway out of greed and necessity. He is the town scoundrel, disowned by his family and banned from the city of Charleston.” In this line I use my feelings about the character of Rhett and background knowledge to convey that I feel like he is a whip. I tie both elements into one main statement and focus on the idea that Rhett is a whip, instead of throwing in elements randomly and giving no explanation, as I did in the post about the vocabulary of the book. At the end of this post I ask the reader, “Do you believe these symbols are accurate? Do you have any others that would work?” These questions are a great way to get the reader involved because even if they haven’t read the story I have given them enough background knowledge and details in proving my symbols, that they should be able to answer these questions. I narrowed the focus down to symbolism and think I did a great job of digging deep into the text. This is one of my favorite posts!
This trimester, I have read 5 books. Even though I am nowhere close to my goal of 20, I do feel like I have grown as reader. I have been choosing to read more challenging books, and have been analyzing them more closely as I read. While reading Gone With The Wind I have learned some new vocabulary, writing technique and character development that I know I will try to use in future writing. Through the story of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, I have learned more about the Civil War. I feel like I have expanded my mind just from reading and blogging and I would like to keep doing that next trimester!
My writing during the first few weeks of blogging was very broad, and didn’t focus on just one element from the text. This can be seen in my post Gone With The Wind Vocabulary. In this post I am talking about the vocabulary in the book, and how that affects the theme, the setting and the context of the story. I specifically state, “When vocabulary like this is used in the book, it makes the theme and context of the story make more sense. The setting of the book is in the South during the Civil War.” I go on to talk more about the setting, completely ignoring the theme and setting elements, and then at the end of the post I ask the reader, “Do you think vocabulary is important in a book? If so, what part of the story does it impact the most?” In my post, I didn’t narrow down the topic enough to ask this question. There is no evidence in my writing that vocabulary impacts either theme, the context of the story or the setting.
I really tried to improve my writing by narrowing down my focus and further developing the element that I chose. I think I show a more narrow focus in my post The Fire and The Whip. In this post I focused on only the symbolism of Scarlett and Rhett. I used my knowledge of the characters and evidence I got from the book to prove that Scarlett and Rhett were best fit to be represented by the objects I thought were most like them. In one line from the blog I state, “Rhett Butler is a whip. An item people don't like associating with or using, but they do anyway out of greed and necessity. He is the town scoundrel, disowned by his family and banned from the city of Charleston.” In this line I use my feelings about the character of Rhett and background knowledge to convey that I feel like he is a whip. I tie both elements into one main statement and focus on the idea that Rhett is a whip, instead of throwing in elements randomly and giving no explanation, as I did in the post about the vocabulary of the book. At the end of this post I ask the reader, “Do you believe these symbols are accurate? Do you have any others that would work?” These questions are a great way to get the reader involved because even if they haven’t read the story I have given them enough background knowledge and details in proving my symbols, that they should be able to answer these questions. I narrowed the focus down to symbolism and think I did a great job of digging deep into the text. This is one of my favorite posts!
This trimester, I have read 5 books. Even though I am nowhere close to my goal of 20, I do feel like I have grown as reader. I have been choosing to read more challenging books, and have been analyzing them more closely as I read. While reading Gone With The Wind I have learned some new vocabulary, writing technique and character development that I know I will try to use in future writing. Through the story of Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler, I have learned more about the Civil War. I feel like I have expanded my mind just from reading and blogging and I would like to keep doing that next trimester!
I like how in depth you gpt to describe the changes from your blogging then to now. Your blog posts are great good job!
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