We were asked to reflect upon are time and experiences with
the class blog. I will admit that at first I was weary with the blog for
several reasons. One, I had no idea what rhetoric was so how was I going to
blog about it, and two, how the hell was I going to respond to my peers in an
academic manner. My first blog on Enheduanna was very text base, use examples
and what not. Although, I will admit I am most proud of my first blog about the
legitimacy of Enheduanna as an author. Go Female Empowerment! My blogs stay
somewhat strong in the beginning using those strong citations to make a clear
concise argument. However with my Kaona blog, the effort I spent deteriorated
due to the hectic-ness that can be the semester. The comments I gave to others usually
consisted of either I agree with the points that you make or yes that is interesting
but what about this. They also usually appeared on the first couple blog that I
read and could identify with in some aspects.
I enjoy
reading the work of my peers because they took different stances or interests
in the reading that I may have glanced over or didn’t understand upon the first
reading because I am a rhetoric novice. How did I get let into this class? Any who,
my peers wrote brilliantly and I enjoy reading their perspectives on most of
the authors. Although I will admit my responses to peers on the Chinese
Rhetoric blogs were not up to par. I had hard time following the line of
thinking especially when Chinese words came into play. However, silence is a
form of rhetorical response. I was paying attention in class.
Overall, I have enjoyed this class
blog more so than any other blog I was forced or willingly to do. It has been
more pleasant because it was collaborative. I wrote a blog and got feedback on
my ideas that I had written on from the previous reading. Then I was able to
take those comment and apply them to the next readings on the same culture. It
was better to have the ideas of the whole than just the thoughts of one.
Personally, it allowed me to see concepts that I missed or from a different
angle, or apply to different topics that are beyond my scope of study.
From the introduction to the final
sessions of this class, I have learned to comprehend rhetoric in a manner that
is beyond the Greek and the art of persuasion. I have come to learn of new
rhetorics that I find to fit better with my own personal style as well as
interest of studies. All in all the class and the blog have allowed me to
become a better rhetorician, additionally it has made me aware of the moves made
in texts that can be persuasion or reflection of a culture. Watch out
Presidential debate! I know all your tricks now.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteMy experience with the blog very much resonates with your's. Initially I found the task fairly daunting because I was having a hard enough time thinking about the concepts. Writing about them without having talked about the ideas in class first seemed near impossible.
To over come this, I also tried to keep my posts very ingrained in the texts. By writing about very specific examples which I only partially understood, I improved my learning by fleshing out the ideas in my own words, organized in a manner which made sense to me.
I feel that a huge benefit of the blog, in addition to making us grapple with our own understanding of a text, was the collaborative nature, and while I too found my responses to follow an "I agree," and/or "but," being able to see how others got into the texts helped me in my own approach. Generally I am easily convinced by what I read, and seeing the way others looked at a text critically gave me more insight and alternative views on the readings. I also enjoyed bringing other material into the discussion, both reading what others found in extra research, or my own.
In sum, while this blog was daunting at times, I think it did improve my learning, largely because of the collaboration in understanding and working through texts. Thanks to all for the participation, I enjoyed reading your ideas.
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you. I have always struggled with responding to others' responses in a constructive way. It was definitely hard to respond to someone else's thoughts when my own weren't developed. I said a lot of "I agree with that's" followed by basically repeating what the person said. That didn't always feel super constructive, but it at least had me working through the process of trying to say something. With that, when I didn't know where to start, the class blog was a great place to go. Someone else had an idea and that was a great way to get my own going.
Even having studied rhetoric in other classes, I can understand the feeling of not understanding what rhetoric is. I still don't completely get it and I'm not totally convinced that anyone every totally gets it. It seems far too open and fluid to nail down a set understanding.
The collaboration was very helpful. With this kind of study, it seems important to consider all kinds of ideas, and having the entire class contribute made it possible for us all to see where everyone else was coming from. There were various views of rhetoric in the class, which I think made things far more interesting.
Overall, I agree that the blog was a daunting thing at times. Writing a response seems like a much bigger deal when all of your peers will be reading it. It seems odd, but I feel a lot less worried about turning a horrible paper into a professor versus a bad response that my peers will see. The professor is going to judge me just as much as my peers, but I'm always more worried about my peers. I think this makes everyone step up their game. As a whole, the blog was a constructive way for all of us to get our ideas out and get constructive feedback, which is very valuable.