Final Impressions

First impressions definitely did not tell anything about this class. The moment I sat down, knowing that it was a writing class; on the first day of summer session I knew and felt that it was not going to be pleasant. However, when Mr. Schaberg introduced the idea that we would be doing all of our writing through blogs I felt intrigued. Days go by turning into weeks and now we’re finally approaching the end.
My overall feeling about writing in this format is surprisingly pleasant and enlightening. I feel this idea was a good “experiment”, because we’ve definitely come a long way from writing on paper. On a side note, this class kind of reminds me of the film “Freedom Writers” in which a teacher goes about an “unorthodox” way of teaching by making her students write in diaries. The internet has allowed spontaneity and creativity at the convenience of media such as blogs and facebook. But although providing a sense of anonymity, these blogs have created somewhat of a loss of privacy, in comparison to traditional writing. Comments and critiques made to one’s writing can be read throughout. And most importantly is what the teacher has responded to. This could be more positive than negative though, because others can gather information about how to change their own writing as well. As opposed to traditional writing I feel that I wouldn’t be writing on as a personal or creative level. Because for one usually writing topics are somewhat bland and subjective, and secondly because not everyone would be reading what I’ve written, just the teacher. And I can honestly say that I’ve been able to read at least one or more posts from every student in this class, which has helped me grow in my writing and critiquing. And from this realization I’ve noticed my own way of writing has changed. I’ve allowed myself to put a little bit of my own personality in my writing rather than just writing for a grade.
Of course I’m only basing this off the English AP course I took in high school and the one English class I took during freshman year. But I wonder up to what point and how much writing would one have to do to be deemed “sufficient” at it? And how much about writing would be taken from this class? To answer in my own perspective, this “high level of writing” has kept me both intellectually and creatively thinking while being sure not to treat it as casual. And yes I’ve somewhat said this already but that’s just the thing that is so important about this style of writing. It’s interesting to have watched my own evolution, as well as others, in writing throughout such a short period of time. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a thought stimulating class such as this in a while, because numbers and calculations do not promote this level of creativity.