I have now completed three reflective posts, one on the CHP, one on voting, and one on getting quiet people to open up. I definitely feel that I am learning as time goes on, though I still have work to do. In terms of style, I feel that I am fairly comfortable with the casual, chatty atmosphere of the blog setting. Unlike a formal essay or report, I am able to say exactly what I am thinking or feeling without having to conform to a specific format, tense, voice, etc. A blog also allows me to “have the floor” as it were and lay my entire idea on the table at once.
I do realize, however, that casual shouldn’t and doesn’t mean vague. This is one area that I can continue to improve on. Instead of talking broadly about a big topic, I need to really delve into a specific idea and search it out. I feel that this is something that will come with practice and that after writing more reflections I will be able to look back and see which ones were vague and which ones were more specific, then be able to learn from them.
I would say that out of the three blogs I have written so far, the second (about voting) was the best and my most recent (about opening up in conversation) was the worst. My explanation for this would be that I never really “got in” to the topic of the third blog. While I did try to talk specifically about a topic, I never really got the big picture motivation for the reflection. I suppose I also felt a bit out of place writing on the topic, because, while I am not a quiet person, I certainly don’t reach out to make new friends like some people do. Basically, I didn’t work hard enough to really delve into the topic, which was a combination of not being totally sure about the topic, and being tired, because I typed it late at night.
On the other hand, I feel that my article on voting was one of my better (out of three, so not really that big of a deal!) articles. I realize that I probably could have been more specific, but I did enjoy the topic and felt that I had a lot to say about it. I was able to talk about a specific idea, that of imperfect voter turn out and also so what relate it to the class.
I guess my biggest thing to learn yet, as I have already mentioned, but which I have realized even more by reflecting on my reflections is the balance of how much I need to investigate or talk about a specific topic. I don’t feel that I have a good understanding yet of what is a “surface” reflection vs. what is a “deep” reflection. Our blogs are certainly not supposed to be heavy reading, but also shouldn’t just waffle around about a general topic.
Another thing that I could do better at is relating the blog to our class discussion. In particular, I didn’t quite get the connection between getting people to open up and what we talked about in class. The first 2 reflections were tangentially related to our class discussion, rather than a further reflection of something specifically talked about in class. Then again, we are really talking about ideas and concepts in class, so writing an article about these general concepts actually is applying what we talked about in class. Again, I feel that with more time I will get a better understanding of how this should be manifested in the blog.
Overall, I feel that I am more or less on the mark for the reflections, but certainly have things that I can improve on. (Prof. Arvan- feel free to comment directly on this if you feel that I am misinformed and need to make more drastic changes.) In the future I would like to try to continue to develop the ability to discuss specific topics in detail. I could also do better at integrating the themes discussed in class into my reflections.
As a closing note, one thing that I don’t think I have to work on is style. Especially after reading the other students blogs, I think that it is readily apparent that we have many and varied ways of writing, even on the same topic. While I did adjust a little bit to account for the blog format, I have been developing my writing style my entire life, and, at this point, have pretty well developed how I approach writing!
I believe that if you are to grade, then grade trajectories, not endpoint, at least at first. In econ we used to joke that 3 observations suffices for a regression. Really you probably need a few more, to see the trend. So I'd like to know whether your writing has plateaued or if it is still in a growth stage. That's the first thing to determine.
ReplyDeleteIf you've read that Scientific American piece about making experts and the notion of "effortful study" you might then ask with the blogging: what do I need to do to stretch myself? In this piece you came up with one thought - drill down to investigate further. Of course, you should keep trying that.
Here's a couple of other suggestions. Try interjecting some specific attitude without announcing you are doing it in the piece, just to see if you can do it. (In this one I'll be satirical. In that one I'll be humorous, etc.) Think of the writing as clothing. You try on a bunch of different stuff before you buy. So that is one suggestion.
The other is to write an entire post about what somebody else wrote in a previous post. You then are writing variations on a theme or you are writing a response to them if you disagree with what they asserted. Then you might think of them as the primary reader of your writing, instead of me.