Blog Reflection

My blogging experience I believe is an atypical experience. I began the semester with strong blogs as seen in “A Place of My Own”, “Close Reading- Mary Cassatt”, “ ‘Young Mother Sewing’ 1900”, “Girl, Interrupted: A Patchwork of a Life”, “Closure for The Complete Persepolis”, and “The Beloved Uncle Anoosh” and ended the semester with little to nothing to say.

My first blog, A Place of My Own, began the semester in a tone with exploring the theme of place and how it can transform a person. I executed this through explaining how the scenery of an otherwise normal summer camp had come to transform me. Later in the course I was able to move from analyzing my life experiences to analyzing other subject matter such as Girl, Interrupted in my blog Girl, Interrupted: A Patchwork of a Life.  I was able to use details of a scene and connect the parallels between the movie plot and the props in the movie. In this example it was the connections between the lives of the women at Claymoore and the book one of the patients was reading, The Patchwork Girl of Oz.

As the semester continued, I continued this style with my blog Closure for The Complete Persepolis. I continued to analyze individual parts of the book with the techniques explained by Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s “Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives”. I was able to grasp the end of the The Complete Persepolis through a close reading and analysis of both text included in the blog.

In the beginning of the semester I would not have changed how I blogged. I think as the semester progressed, I found it more difficult to write about topics and I should have changed my process. For example In the Thing Around Your Neck, I had difficulty finding substance to use. I should have reverted back to the techniques taught in Close Reading-Mary Cassatt, “Young Mother Sewing” 1900. Those techniques of reading for comprehension, observing, explaining observations, and finally formulating conclusions would have helped created more substance to my blog. Also including direct quotes from the book would help create a closer and more accurate connection to the blog.

My favorite blog post, Black Lives Matter vs. All Lives Matter, although it is only extra credit, I really enjoyed attending the event and blogging about the program. The entire piece made me step out of my comfort zone, analyze the discussion between Black Lives and All Lives Matter, and finally finding how it all applies to me. I showed this through explaining the foundation of the movement, both sides of the movement, and finally how it applied to my Catholic life. I believe that as a Humanistic Studies major or even from just completing this entry level course being able to perform those functions is what a HUST course is teaching.

Overall, using the blogs on a weekly basis was helpful for this class. It made the students keep up with the readings and focus on certain aspects. It honed our close reading skills that are very important for college as first year students and beyond.