This week’s blog is about blogging as a part of our weekly LA class assignment. I want to ask the question, as a part of this week’s blog - Is the blogging we are doing is really what blogging is meant to be? Wasn’t blogging started as a way to personally express yourself without judgment? Isn’t the blogosphere supposed to be a place of complete freedom where our own distinct personalities are allowed to run wild in creative writing? Isn’t there something a little off when we get graded on our blogs when they are expressions of our personal thoughts? What makes my thoughts better (or worse) then your thoughts? I guess the question is – is there a difference between a blog, which is an expression of our unique personal thoughts, and an essay, which is usually an assignment, which we get graded for?
On a basic level there are differences between blogs and essays in their structure and purpose. Blogs can be any length, but are usually short (like a paragraph or maybe a few paragraphs), while an essay has to have at least five paragraphs (1 introduction, 3 body and 1 conclusion paragraphs) and has a specific structure. Blogging it supposed to be a short and creative expression of our personal opinions or an update about what’s going on in our or other people’s lives (I guess if it’s about other peoples lives that would be gossip). An essay can be about any topic and is supposed to express an idea or thought which may have nothing to do with what we really think or care about. Essay topics are usually assigned and we do them because we need the grade. An essay is more like work, while a blog should be more like love. At least that’s what I think.
So, if we are really doing a personal blog should we be graded on it? I am not sure. I think that doing the blog is a great idea and doing it is helping me (I hope) become more experienced with writing and expressing myself. But I don’t personally like getting graded on my blog, as this seems to devalue my personal thoughts about whatever I decided to write about. How can my ideas be of less or more value than yours? Isn’t the real value of the blogosphere the freedom that exists in the uncontrolled and unjudged character of blogging?
I commented on Emily's Blog.
That is a very very good post emilie. I never thought about that. I got a few low marks, but i stated my opinion and i thought that was what we were supposed to do. I like how descriptive you are and just keep up the good writing. You are getting better :P
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