Jaycee Snelson Week 16: The Blogger Experience
Jaycee Snelson Week 16: The Blogger Experience
As this is our last blog we will be writing in AP Language and Composition, I decided to look back over all the blogs I wrote this year. To start with, let me share some of the statistics of our blogging journey. Over the school year we have written a total of 16 blogs and between 48 to 64 comments. We blogged about identity, America, power, and memory, all of which we had a wide range of topics and interpretations of.
Over these array of blogs I have experimented, to some levels of success, with my writing style and types of blogs I wrote. I experimented with poetry, more factual/scientific blogs, and personal stories full of descriptive detail. I found that I loved the rhythmic, lyrical, feel of the blogs I wrote with poetry but that these were the blogs that took me the most time to craft, due to the amount of debate over every single word I used to make the piece flow the best. The factual/scientific blogs were also fun to write but, these blogs were not the most interesting. Finally, the personal stories were also fun to write but they were the safest blog to write which meant they didn’t stand out as much as the more poetic blogs.
There was at least one blog that stood out to me as the “best” blog for every quarter. In the first quarter my favorite blog was titled “camelion” and it talked about how I felt like I had to change my personality for every person I talked to. My favorite blog from quarter two was “My Poem Left Unwritten” which tells of my experience trying to write a poem on America but failing. But, this blog was written in a lyrical tone as an ironic twist of being unable to produce a poem. In quarter three my favorite blog I did was “Dreams” which describes the power dreams have on us. This was a good blend of factual and personal styles of writing and highlights my personality well. Quarter four holds one of my favorite blogs I have written this year, “Dear past self”. This blog is a poem about the things I used to do as a kid and how they have changed over time as I have grown.
Blogging has been a great experience of connecting with our classmates and finding our own voice. As I have written these blogs I can see how I have grown as a writer. I have started to find my own personal style of writing but still have far to go. I hope you have enjoyed writing these blogs as much as I have. What was your favorite blog you have written this year?
It’s hard to believe that last week’s blog was the last one that we’ll ever write. Like you mention, I’ve also experimented with the same types of writing styles that you have: informational, personal, and more poetic blogs. Since you chose your favorite blogs for each quarter, I decided to do the same. For the first quarter with the theme of identity, my favorite blog has to be the first one that I wrote about certain words in my mother tongue, Tamil. It helped me learn a lot more about my culture and the beliefs of the people like me, so it was an educational experience. For the second quarter which had the theme of America, my favorite blog had to be the one about banned books. I knew beforehand that there were several popular books that had been banned for bizarre reasons, but it was only after researching and looking through the immensely long list that I realized the sheer amount of books that had been banned. Since books had been such a big part of my childhood, it upset me that other kids wouldn’t have the same access to the same books that I read as a kid. For quarter three, which had the theme of power, my favorite blog has to be the one that I wrote about one of my favorite shows of all time, Weak Hero. On the surface, the plot of the show may seem elementary and quite simple: a kid gets mad at his friends and decides to get revenge on them. However, there is so much more at play, especially when you look at the emotion aspect of it. There are so many complicated conflicting emotions, making analyzing the show and its connection to power very fun. For this last quarter, where the theme was memory, I had a lot of fun writing my blog, “Reminders of Memories.” Other than encouraging me to look around at the mess in my room, it really helped me just think about the memories that each of the objects held and what they meant to me.
ReplyDeleteI’m so happy that you have enjoyed writing poetry for your blogs! My biggest regret this school year is not writing more poetry; I feel like I have been out of touch with my artistic side as of late, so I’m trying to take on more projects now that the school year is winding down, and I want to start reading more poetry over the summer again. Reading Acintya’s and your blogs, I am always amazed how much words can convey. Have you heard of Dead Poets Society? It’s a student-run poetry group at our school that meets once a week during FLEX. Sadly, we did have our last session for the year today, but you should come one day when senior year starts (aaaaa we’re about to be seniors!).
ReplyDeleteI like Disha’s comment about how each blog taught her more about her identity as well as recall an old part of herself. I would also like to connect this to Atharv’s blog this week about how our bodies are constantly updating our memories. Although the science of memory consolidation is mainly confined to sleep, I feel like blogs also help us in this process. Every week, we are encouraged to learn something new or remember something about ourselves which doesn’t always come up in our minds. Blogs are a medium of exploration, but also memory.
Hi Jaycee! This year’s blogging experience has been truly memorable for me. My favorite Q1 blog post was also the first blog post I wrote for AP Lang, titled “Birds of a Feather.” It described how my mother tongue, Konkani, is slowly dying due to migration, assimilation, and cultural disconnect. I felt a bit helpless about how many Konkani words were being lost and replaced with English or Malayalam ones, and how they will likely be forgotten for eternity. After I finished writing it, I discovered that I really liked the prose and diction of that post, and I still think it’s one of my best blog posts overall. My favorite Q2 post was called “A is for Antiestablishmentarianism,” which I wrote just as we started our anti-prejudice unit. I was struck by the contrast between declining literacy and education rates in this country and the thoughtfulness and dedication that AP Lang students put into the books they read, and explored that contrast in the post. For Q3, I posted an analysis of Imogen Heap’s 2005 song “Whatcha Say,” which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest songs of all time. I enjoyed writing that post because I rarely write those kinds of literary analyses anymore compared to sophomore year, so it felt quite nostalgic. As for Q4, I’ve gone quite a bit out of my comfort zone with poetry—I’d say that my favorite poem was “brushtrokes of youth” because of the permeating visual that I associate with that poem. I’d say my poetic vision was the strongest in that one.
ReplyDeleteEnough about me. Jaycee, I’ve really loved reading your blogs this year, especially when you write about your family. You write with eloquence and grace, and your writing really shows an appreciation for the small things in life. Your writing style is always clear, too; I’m never confused about the message you’re sending, and you’re always able to phrase it in a confident and convincing way. Your poetry is great, too! I’d love to read more! Thanks for a great year of blogs, Jaycee!