When I look back at my first blog post, I can easily see changes in my writing. The early mistakes are clear when looking at the punctuation, or lack of punctuation, in my first post and by the usage of choppy and random sentences. However, the greatest improvement that I will take forward is the feeling of confidence. I feel capable of tackling an eight-page essay and I am no longer intimidated by long writing assignments. I believe this stems from the way I think about and approach my writing, before words have even hit the page. In my first blog post I wrote that I often "vomit" my ideas onto my paper and "sort through the chunks" later. Now my authorial "stomach" seems to have settled and I am able to control my thoughts and ideas easily. I feel more comfortable making writing decisions and this has eased the entire process. I now try to strategize when making arguments and add in-scene descriptions, (which are often far from perfect) but these choices were not ones that I had even thought about in the first blog post. Essentially, this class has given me a way to think about writing. I honestly didn’t put extensive thought into writing in the past and besides following the five-paragraph essay model, I simply wrote the dialogue of the “voice in my head” as I though about a particular subject. This is no longer the case, writing has become a useful way to create meaningful work and at times it can be fun too.
Also, I have a new appreciation for peer review. The peer resource is extremely valuable and a resource that I rarely used before this class.
