In the beginning I struggled with a couple of things, specifically
evidence. Whenever I would have a good thing to write about I would always steam
to struggle with providing evidence. I kept on trying hard to put more evidence
in my blogs but every time I would always fall short of my own expectations. I
kept on doing a little more of what I thought would make my blog post solid.
When I reached the end of my ideas I got another check by the teacher. I was
finally successful. I felt as successful
as a lion does when it catches its prey. This journey was not that easy. Every
time I would sit there with my book, thinking for a while on what evidence I
could use. I kept on trying hard to find as much as I could and to be super
specific. I had finally achieved success. After almost 8 weeks of wonders and
thoughts.
Though I struggled with finding evidence, there were other
things which I was good at. One thing which I was solid on was symbolism. One
day I decided to pick up a challenge so I decided to do the prompt in which I
had to compare tangible things to the characters based on their characteristics.
The first thing I did was make a list of all the characters and then I thought
and thought. Suddenly some ideas started rolling to me and I had an excellent
blog post. The teacher told me she really liked my comparison of a chameleon
and Hartwell.
Over this course of time there have been many new books released
and many books which have already been written. Out of all these books it tends
to get difficult to find the best fit. One thing that helped me was, “Goodreads.”
This is a great website to give me some recommendations based on previous books
which I have read. This actually showed me a great book called Swagger. I read this book and I loved it,
it is one of the best books that I have ever read.
My quality of writing has improved immensely over time.
Over time I have come out of the plain type of writing and have upgraded to a
more professional style. One big thing I improved on was
how I started my post. I noticed that usually I got right to the point fairly
quickly, making it a little confusing, but upon elaborating the reader would
understand it more. For example
In one of
my older blog posts: In my book "Swagger," Jonas Dolan is currently
trying to help Levi (his new friend) receive a good grade in his classes.
If the
reader did not read the title they would not understand what I am talking about
so I decided to elaborate more. An example is
In one of
my newer blog posts: There are many different characters in the book and they
all can be represented by something. They all have a symbol for themselves. These
are some symbols for the characters I have encountered so far.
This gives
the reader a better insight on what I am talking about, without them having to
read the title.
Another
thing which I changed was how specific I was, for this example I will use the
same 2 posts.
In one of
my older blog posts: When Jonas explained to Levi what the important things
were, Levi was very surprised and shocked that Jonas knew what was important.
In this sentence
I had to be more specific because you don’t understand it. I should have said
that Levi was writing down everything that the teacher was saying even when it
was about her personal life so he never had anything important to study.
In one of
my newer blog posts: He is like water because he is pure and his thoughts are
clean like water. One thing that supports this is that he did not
drink beer or watch any inappropriate movies at the party. He did not
think that it would be okay, instead he just walked out.
This does
a better job of being specific so the reader knows everything to be able to
understand it, so based on this example a reader could know why Levi is thought
of as a clean and pure guy.
Blogging has been a great way to improve my writing skills.
Commenting on other posts gave me many opportunities to learn different ways of
setting up blogs. One idea from Ruth’s blog was how to separate old and new
examples. Overall it has increased my writing skills.
