Saturday, December 06, 2003
Finally, this is how me and Blogging became friends since the first day of my college !
English 1101 at Georgia Tech are the College Freshmen English class. Our professor, Dr. Charles Tryon, made us write a blog entry each week for the class instead of writing the papers or something like that. The topic on which we had to write the blogs differed from the rhetoric point of view on the readings to the personal view. These blogs' topics revealed completely what we did in the class.
This was the first time, I had ever written a blog (and I was not the only one. There were even students who had never heard of the blogs before). So, of course I was not comfortable with the blogs at the beginning of the semester. Slowly I got into them, and now it is not a big deal, yet there are some topics on which I still cannot write the blogs.
Similarly I faced several topics on which I could not write or found it difficult to write during the course, and there were many topics on which it was very comfortable to write on. In this wrap-up blog I will try to figure out four-five of my best blog entries and one-two of my worst entries. Before going any further I hope this last blog entries for the course turns out to be my best of all and I incorporate all the blogging skills I have learnt so far in this semester.
The topics on which it was very easy to write were the ones where we had to express our views. The most interesting one and, hence, the one with which I was most comfortable was an entry based on reading from William J. Mitchell's book E-topia. Of the seven pages I read from the book, the sentence, "long-established settlement patterns and social arrangements are remarkably resistant to even the powerful pressures for change; mostly they transform slowly, messily, unevenly, and incompletely, and human nature hardly alters at all (E-topia 71)". In this blog entry, I spoke completely on this particular sentence. The huge class discussion on this particular sentence makes this entry the reflection of some of the all-time memorable moments of my life.
Another blog entry were I think was successful is one that was response to the blogs written during the Iraq war period. In this blog entry, I replied to Salam Pax blog entries for the month of March 2003 because that is when the issue of War with Iraq was the hottest one worldwide. What makes me believe this entry to be a successful one is the fact that I very well analyzed the argument made by Salman Pax using the ethos, logos, and pathos method. Salman Pax seems to be a resident of Baghdad, and in the blog he describes the conditions during the bombing of Baghdad. By comparing the emotions of a resident of Baghdad during the bombing of their hometown to those of New Yorkers after 9/11 was something help make this entry a success. I have a very blur memory about some people in the class feeling that the character Salman Pax can be a fictional character and, hence, his blog cannot be taken seriously. But through my last concluding sentence,"Even if Salam in itself is not real, the experiences and the emotions depicted are not far away from the reality!!!!!!!", I gave the reply to those not willingly to agree with Salman Pax just because they were not aware of the existence of the character.
My fourth blog entry was a response to our first online reserve reading. The reading of excerpt from The Storyteller written by Benjamin W. Even though the reading was tough language wise, "Thanks to the comments from Lyn Hejinian, I understood little bit of what Benjamin has to say regarding the degrading of the art of storytelling with the entrance of the modern technologies and advancement". I did not agree with the views of Benjamin and I argued against. During the process, I very well quoted words for his excerpt to prove how contradicting Benjamin W. was. Also, there was room for me to incorporate personal experience to argue against. These helped me make a good argument and, hence, a successful entry.
When I started blogging this semester, the blogs to me were like diaries (just digital format) in which "people express their feelings, views, experiences, and so on. None of these can be right or wrong". But Rebecca Blood's Weblog Ethics challenged some of mine views related to blogging. I was not still convinced of having anything like Weblog Ethics . In the end, I found myself completely against her views and concluding my entry with "Morally all the ethics set forth by Blood are right, but logically either they are irrelevant or they are tough to maintain!". Second look at this point today, I find myself using good and convincing counter-arguments in that entry.
I can go on with the list of all of my best entries and most of my entries will make this list because what appears bad at first-look seems better at second. When I am reading the entries at this point, all of them seem good and if not good, then at least not that bad. But one entry still does not appeal me enough to make the list is one on the Gallery assignment. As we were required to visit a local museum and write an entry on the museum, I selected Science Museum SciTrek that was at walking distance of about a mile from my dorm. I do not remember myself visiting a museum ever before, so I was excited, but on entering itself I was disappointed. The museum seemed to be for kids because most of the displays did not tell anything more than what I learned in high school. Also, the museum was not big, as I after spending luxurious self-guided and lonely hour I found nothing else to see. One of the major focus for this blog entry was to analyze the organization patterns of the museum and the effects. However, on most part the organization pattern was not that relevant in this particular case, may be because it is not some historical exhibition. Finally, when I started to write the entry, I realized that most of the questions that formed our basis of the entry were left unanswered and, hence, leaving me nowhere near to write decent entry.
Besides these blogs entries, the class was divided into six groups with each writing a Group Blog based on any theme decided by the group members. Our group decided to write a blog reviewing the food available on and near the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Being a vegetarian I opted the review on basis of what is available for vegetarians. The group blog entries were very easy to write because mostly they were written on something very one is interested in. Besides the blogs (including Group Project), we also had to write couple of traditional papers.
Today at the end of semester, I am amazed how the blogging and its benefits were incorporated into the course without even compromising any of the traditional course plus points. And I can conclude without any hesitation that blogging the best writing tool I have ever been introduced to because it not only provides the needed room for amateur writer but also save an awfully large numbers of trees. I can see that in the near future most of literature and communication classes using this tool where instead of submitting the paper to teachers, the papers are blogged and with the help of special comment function (that will allow privacy) teachers can comment and grade the paper like they do now with the only difference that the papers will be digital and published.
Work Citation:
Mitchell, William J. "Homes and Neighborhoods." E-Topia. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. 71-82.
English 1101 at Georgia Tech are the College Freshmen English class. Our professor, Dr. Charles Tryon, made us write a blog entry each week for the class instead of writing the papers or something like that. The topic on which we had to write the blogs differed from the rhetoric point of view on the readings to the personal view. These blogs' topics revealed completely what we did in the class.
This was the first time, I had ever written a blog (and I was not the only one. There were even students who had never heard of the blogs before). So, of course I was not comfortable with the blogs at the beginning of the semester. Slowly I got into them, and now it is not a big deal, yet there are some topics on which I still cannot write the blogs.
Similarly I faced several topics on which I could not write or found it difficult to write during the course, and there were many topics on which it was very comfortable to write on. In this wrap-up blog I will try to figure out four-five of my best blog entries and one-two of my worst entries. Before going any further I hope this last blog entries for the course turns out to be my best of all and I incorporate all the blogging skills I have learnt so far in this semester.
The topics on which it was very easy to write were the ones where we had to express our views. The most interesting one and, hence, the one with which I was most comfortable was an entry based on reading from William J. Mitchell's book E-topia. Of the seven pages I read from the book, the sentence, "long-established settlement patterns and social arrangements are remarkably resistant to even the powerful pressures for change; mostly they transform slowly, messily, unevenly, and incompletely, and human nature hardly alters at all (E-topia 71)". In this blog entry, I spoke completely on this particular sentence. The huge class discussion on this particular sentence makes this entry the reflection of some of the all-time memorable moments of my life.
Another blog entry were I think was successful is one that was response to the blogs written during the Iraq war period. In this blog entry, I replied to Salam Pax blog entries for the month of March 2003 because that is when the issue of War with Iraq was the hottest one worldwide. What makes me believe this entry to be a successful one is the fact that I very well analyzed the argument made by Salman Pax using the ethos, logos, and pathos method. Salman Pax seems to be a resident of Baghdad, and in the blog he describes the conditions during the bombing of Baghdad. By comparing the emotions of a resident of Baghdad during the bombing of their hometown to those of New Yorkers after 9/11 was something help make this entry a success. I have a very blur memory about some people in the class feeling that the character Salman Pax can be a fictional character and, hence, his blog cannot be taken seriously. But through my last concluding sentence,"Even if Salam in itself is not real, the experiences and the emotions depicted are not far away from the reality!!!!!!!", I gave the reply to those not willingly to agree with Salman Pax just because they were not aware of the existence of the character.
My fourth blog entry was a response to our first online reserve reading. The reading of excerpt from The Storyteller written by Benjamin W. Even though the reading was tough language wise, "Thanks to the comments from Lyn Hejinian, I understood little bit of what Benjamin has to say regarding the degrading of the art of storytelling with the entrance of the modern technologies and advancement". I did not agree with the views of Benjamin and I argued against. During the process, I very well quoted words for his excerpt to prove how contradicting Benjamin W. was. Also, there was room for me to incorporate personal experience to argue against. These helped me make a good argument and, hence, a successful entry.
When I started blogging this semester, the blogs to me were like diaries (just digital format) in which "people express their feelings, views, experiences, and so on. None of these can be right or wrong". But Rebecca Blood's Weblog Ethics challenged some of mine views related to blogging. I was not still convinced of having anything like Weblog Ethics . In the end, I found myself completely against her views and concluding my entry with "Morally all the ethics set forth by Blood are right, but logically either they are irrelevant or they are tough to maintain!". Second look at this point today, I find myself using good and convincing counter-arguments in that entry.
I can go on with the list of all of my best entries and most of my entries will make this list because what appears bad at first-look seems better at second. When I am reading the entries at this point, all of them seem good and if not good, then at least not that bad. But one entry still does not appeal me enough to make the list is one on the Gallery assignment. As we were required to visit a local museum and write an entry on the museum, I selected Science Museum SciTrek that was at walking distance of about a mile from my dorm. I do not remember myself visiting a museum ever before, so I was excited, but on entering itself I was disappointed. The museum seemed to be for kids because most of the displays did not tell anything more than what I learned in high school. Also, the museum was not big, as I after spending luxurious self-guided and lonely hour I found nothing else to see. One of the major focus for this blog entry was to analyze the organization patterns of the museum and the effects. However, on most part the organization pattern was not that relevant in this particular case, may be because it is not some historical exhibition. Finally, when I started to write the entry, I realized that most of the questions that formed our basis of the entry were left unanswered and, hence, leaving me nowhere near to write decent entry.
Besides these blogs entries, the class was divided into six groups with each writing a Group Blog based on any theme decided by the group members. Our group decided to write a blog reviewing the food available on and near the campus of Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. Being a vegetarian I opted the review on basis of what is available for vegetarians. The group blog entries were very easy to write because mostly they were written on something very one is interested in. Besides the blogs (including Group Project), we also had to write couple of traditional papers.
Today at the end of semester, I am amazed how the blogging and its benefits were incorporated into the course without even compromising any of the traditional course plus points. And I can conclude without any hesitation that blogging the best writing tool I have ever been introduced to because it not only provides the needed room for amateur writer but also save an awfully large numbers of trees. I can see that in the near future most of literature and communication classes using this tool where instead of submitting the paper to teachers, the papers are blogged and with the help of special comment function (that will allow privacy) teachers can comment and grade the paper like they do now with the only difference that the papers will be digital and published.
Work Citation:
Mitchell, William J. "Homes and Neighborhoods." E-Topia. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. 71-82.
