1.Explain one or two ways my writing has improved (or not). Include a few examples from my posts over time, with analysis and links to the original posts, to illustrate how the improvement(s) happened.
5.What's my usual revision/editing process? How do I go from rough to final draft?
10.Where do I get my ideas for blog post topics? What inspires me to write?
After an entire school year of blogging, i am definitely more comfortable with quickly evaluating and organizing my ideas. I feel that with all this practice responding to so many people and books has made me a more efficient writer. I remember when i could never fully decide which person or quote to respond to, but as time went by, I would be able to respond thoughtfully to just about anything I found.
This is a quote from the beginning of the year, where I responded to Alex Noble.
I remember that response took me a long time to thing. My ideas were all scattered, and I did not know where to start talking. I ended up responding with a really short paragraph about what I thought. Even that one paragraph was extremely hard for me. It took nearly an hour to finally decide what I wanted to write about.
Now that I look at my blog posts, and I realize that I have really improved at writing freely. My last blog post was my final book review on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
I remember when I did it, I easily pulled out useful quotes out of the book. I would think about significant parts of the book, and instantly remember different parts of the story that ultimately connected. I talked about the main character, Christopher’s, autism. I remember that when I first responded to the story of the Aquatic Uncle, I had major problems finding quotes. This truly proves how I ultimately improved in responding to my books.
I also noticed that I tried to find posts by people I knew , that also talked about topics i could closely relate to, like when I seconded David when he talked about being nervous and when
like when I countered Wendy when she said siblings are not helpful. I think i got my response ideas
Another way I have been inspired to write on my blogs is when I wrote about my desired superpower
Usually, my editing process starts off with goings over my latest rough draft to find grammar and spelling mistakes. Sometimes, I can even see obvious details I can remove and add, but this does not usually happen until I finish reading my entire draft from top to bottom. This is because I need to remember and think about what i have already said, and if I should move the ideas around to make it flow. After looking at all the grammar and spelling mistakes, I would usually try to add more points if necessary. This usually means more quotes and analyses. In the end, I may even sprinkle the near-finished draft with some transitions or even some stronger verbs.
On one occasion, I even make the mistake of leaving an entire conclusion out. This happened when I was doing my first rough draft of the book review on The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time. Luckily, I had a peer point it out, something that is always helpful. I also needed the conclusion because I was panicking about my final draft being under the required count of 1000 words. In my final draft of the book review, I polished it by adding the conclusion and cleaning up the formatting.
I truly believe that blogging is a really good tool to practice writing. It helps people become more comfortable with what they are writing about. I saw major differences in how I wrote my blog posts over time. I started off slow and unsure, but now, I have become more comfortable writing what comes to mind. I have noticed that this extra practice has also helped me in my Writing One course. I find it easier to organize an essay now than it was in the front of the year. This extra practice also helped me realize where I usually make mistakes, allowing me to noticed them more frequently. This leads to me being able to prevent producing the same mistakes in the future. Overall, I think that this new way of teaching is really great, especially when the teacher of those students is you, a considerate, encouraging, and helpful person.
P.S. Thank you for spending this year helping me improve my writing skills, and I wish you the best of luck to your teaching career, no matter if it is at ASTI or somewhere else.
5.What's my usual revision/editing process? How do I go from rough to final draft?
10.Where do I get my ideas for blog post topics? What inspires me to write?
After an entire school year of blogging, i am definitely more comfortable with quickly evaluating and organizing my ideas. I feel that with all this practice responding to so many people and books has made me a more efficient writer. I remember when i could never fully decide which person or quote to respond to, but as time went by, I would be able to respond thoughtfully to just about anything I found.
This is a quote from the beginning of the year, where I responded to Alex Noble.
I remember that response took me a long time to thing. My ideas were all scattered, and I did not know where to start talking. I ended up responding with a really short paragraph about what I thought. Even that one paragraph was extremely hard for me. It took nearly an hour to finally decide what I wanted to write about.
Now that I look at my blog posts, and I realize that I have really improved at writing freely. My last blog post was my final book review on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
I remember when I did it, I easily pulled out useful quotes out of the book. I would think about significant parts of the book, and instantly remember different parts of the story that ultimately connected. I talked about the main character, Christopher’s, autism. I remember that when I first responded to the story of the Aquatic Uncle, I had major problems finding quotes. This truly proves how I ultimately improved in responding to my books.
I also noticed that I tried to find posts by people I knew , that also talked about topics i could closely relate to, like when I seconded David when he talked about being nervous and when
like when I countered Wendy when she said siblings are not helpful. I think i got my response ideas
“ I have the same bad habits as David. When I read a paper in front on the class, my leg starts moving around like it has its own mind, and my mind tells me to speed up my reading and get it over with. My whole body gets cold, and I get chills down my spine.”The second I saw that David was talking about being scared while talking in front of an audience, I was instantly inspired to respond, writing on my blog about my experiences with stage fright.
“They may be annoying sometimes, but it may actually be for a reason if you look through it not only your own eyes. My life would definitely be a life of boredom and a life of always messing up in life without my two brothers’ love and help.”Again, I responded with my personal experience. I talked briefly about how my brothers have made a positive impact in my life, and how I think siblings are actually not just plain annoying.
Another way I have been inspired to write on my blogs is when I wrote about my desired superpower
”If I had a super power it would be the ability to create an item by visualizing it in your mind.”I was inspired to talk about this through the movie, Inception. I remembered how the characters in the dreams were allowed to dream up anything they wanted, which was super cool, so I blogged about it. When I was writing about this, I was also thinking about the science behind this superpower, if there is any. The more I thought about this superpower, the more I liked it. I felt more and more connected to it.
Usually, my editing process starts off with goings over my latest rough draft to find grammar and spelling mistakes. Sometimes, I can even see obvious details I can remove and add, but this does not usually happen until I finish reading my entire draft from top to bottom. This is because I need to remember and think about what i have already said, and if I should move the ideas around to make it flow. After looking at all the grammar and spelling mistakes, I would usually try to add more points if necessary. This usually means more quotes and analyses. In the end, I may even sprinkle the near-finished draft with some transitions or even some stronger verbs.
On one occasion, I even make the mistake of leaving an entire conclusion out. This happened when I was doing my first rough draft of the book review on The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time. Luckily, I had a peer point it out, something that is always helpful. I also needed the conclusion because I was panicking about my final draft being under the required count of 1000 words. In my final draft of the book review, I polished it by adding the conclusion and cleaning up the formatting.
I truly believe that blogging is a really good tool to practice writing. It helps people become more comfortable with what they are writing about. I saw major differences in how I wrote my blog posts over time. I started off slow and unsure, but now, I have become more comfortable writing what comes to mind. I have noticed that this extra practice has also helped me in my Writing One course. I find it easier to organize an essay now than it was in the front of the year. This extra practice also helped me realize where I usually make mistakes, allowing me to noticed them more frequently. This leads to me being able to prevent producing the same mistakes in the future. Overall, I think that this new way of teaching is really great, especially when the teacher of those students is you, a considerate, encouraging, and helpful person.
P.S. Thank you for spending this year helping me improve my writing skills, and I wish you the best of luck to your teaching career, no matter if it is at ASTI or somewhere else.
This is really well done. You get into lots of specific examples (with links, thanks!) and you approach your work through lots of different angles. I'm really glad that the blogging has given you good practice and helped you work up to some major upgrades to your writing skills/process...but there's no need to thank me...YOU did the work!
ReplyDeleteHope you'll keep posting, Victorious.