“Why Blog?” Notes

Making Connections: “Unfortunately, often the trappings of school curriculum can interfere with our ability to connect writing to our own goals and interests” (Reid).

The internet swarms social media with images of machines (representing schools) chipping away at students (shown as rocks) until they are all identical. Now, this form of education is not necessarily wrong, but there are truly a lack opportunities to show individualism and out-of-the-box thinking. There’s always that first english paper assigned, asking to describe who students are and what they are interested in, yet afterwards there are only book assignments and essays. This year, my professor took a different approach and introduced blogging. My class recently discussed the pros and cons of blogging rather than the standard teaching methods. One positive of blogging that the class discussed was that the students claimed to be less stressed by blogging because they could write as themselves and express their own thoughts. Another positive discussed was how a different style of writing will expand a student’s writing capabilities. On the other hand, students claimed that it is slightly stressful when peers and strangers have the ability to read their writings. Yet, by having an audience, students work harder to not only impress the professor, but also their peers. Another con my peers mentioned was that they are not used to writing through blogs, but it will only widen our horizon of writing experience. By getting into the routine of blogging, I noticed that I not only write more often, but I procrastinate less compared to past essay assignments.

 

Commentary:  “The trick in creating a flow state is to set a task that is neither so hard as to create frustration or anxiety or so easy as to be boring. As such, it is essential that you discover a subject for your blog that truly engages you”(Reid).

While writing essays, a common suggestion that many professors offer is to leave the first sentence for last. By doing this, the student will not stay stuck on one of the most challenging parts of an essay, hook. The majority of people who read and write blogs do so because they enjoy it, so the key to blogs is the ability to maintain the attraction of the reader. “Flow” is an important element to any style of writing, and blogging is an excellent way to master this key to writing. I admit, it’s hard to pay attention nowadays, so when I do become drawn towards a paper or article, I know to take tips. Writing for a topic that is meaningful and interesting to a writer will engage more readers than a popular writer trying to write a paper on something they hate or know nothing about. It may not always be noticeable, but a passionate writer creates passionate readers.

 

Analysis: “Unfortunately, decades of research suggest that such extrinsic motivators can actually hurt our performance on challenging intellectual tasks like writing an essay” (Reid).

Reading this section of the article, I became slightly aware of the lack of proven research behind this statement. Yes, many of my peers argue that the grading system may restrict outside ideas and the opportunity to explore, but what are examples of grades and outside motivation harming academic performance? Where are the examples of the decades of research? I have my own opinions on the matter, yet the author fails to back up his claims on this particular section. The majority of the article describes self-motivation and blogging for the individual, but only briefly touches on mentioning the benefits of blogging for a class or even writing for a class in general. The author also avoids pointing out opinions of people who are against blogging. What are the disadvantages of blogging? Many forms of professional writing aim to eliminate bias and personal opinion, like research papers, news articles (at least they shouldn’t be biased), and document writing. Yes, the author did an excellent job with this article, but this lack of research can catch a reader off guard.