Meta-Post

As I went back and read all of the blog posts that I have written this year I realized how much I actually enjoy blogging.  It gives me the incentive to look into current events and to dig deeper and make connections from discussions in class to my daily life.  I think that my enthusiasm towards blogging is shown in the range of blog topics I have had.  I have gone from race to politics to oral histories to analyzing pictures.  A variety in my blog post types has, in my opinion, been a strength of mine because I am exploring multiple paths that I wouldn't have if the topics hadn't been discussed in class.

I think that my writing style can be a little bit predictable because I seem to start off each blog with, "In American Studies this week..." or something along those lines.  My last two posts have held off on the connection to AIS in order for my posts to have some sort of hook to draw the reader in.  I think that is something I can continue to work on, even though it seems small, I think that a post becomes much more interesting and fun to read without a standard "what we did this week" introduction.

Another thing I need to work on is leaving my blog posts open-ended so that somebody else can respond and offer an opinion.  I have been trying to avoid using the ask a question method at the end of each post, but it's not really such an awful thing to do, and it's hard to end each post with an open-ended statement.  I think I did manage to do that in my post, "The Way She Was".  I was happy that I was able to present two sides to a topic that I was having trouble with as well as my opinion, but at the same time I must have left enough room for people to take the opposite stance.  This is shown by the comments on the post, when people said that they agreed but then also showed how taking the other point of view on the topic wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

In my opinion, the post that most represents my growth as a blogger thus far is Green Eggs & Ham.  I was proud of the way that I connected race to a childhood book as well as to an article that appeared on my Yahoo! e-mail homepage.  I don't think that I provided an arguable topic, but I think I left enough room for people to add their own opinions, because I had two commenters who agreed with me, but then added how they felt how the topic effects their own lives, or further justification.