Coda

Well, here we are, the final blog. This will be my last blog entry, as I have reached my summer goal of 50+ blogs. I have to say that blogging really wasn't as bad as it was made out to be. I remember last year around this time, looking on Facebook and seeing all of the Juniors rushing statuses about finishing their English blogs, and I really dreaded the thought of having to blog about the books I read. Honestly, writing essay's would have been so much simpler. It would have taken so much less time. But writing an essay for a teacher that you have never had would just be silly. There is no way to know what expectations that teacher has for writing essays, and you'll probably just fail your essays. Blogging was actually an enjoyable experience. Some students would say that they would actually read the books and get the same thing out of them as if they blogged, but lets be honest, that just isn't true. Blogging really made me pick apart the books that I read and get a fuller understanding of the novels. If I didn't blog about the books, I wouldn't know about the thematic importance of DiMaggio in The Old Man and the Sea. I probably would have just thought it was a stupid baseball reference, not a strong symbolic image that was absolutely necessary to the story. Blogging was a way to informally keep track of ideas and notes while reading a story, or after completion of the story. It made sure that I really knew and understood what I was reading, and not just going through the motions of reading a book. Blogging does require technology, but it is absolutely beneficiary to the students. I can confidently say that I really have a strong grasp on the summer English books that I read. I did choose to read 4 books, and because of the blogging required, I know that I have a good grasp on the concepts in each one. Blogging should be used in all English classes for summer work, in my opinion, because it opens up doors for personality in writing while still keeping the learning aspects intact. Blogging was definitely not a waste of my summer, and I know that I really do understand the stories that over these past few months.