Reflective Final

Choose one post. (My favorite? My least favorite? The one that surprises me the most when I reread it?) Analyze it in detail. Explain the "behind-the-scenes" of how it was written, what it truly means, where its inspiration came from, etc.

My favorite blog post from the second semester, is the post where we wrote about what we believed would happen to Esperanza after the story ended in the book The House on Mango Street. I titled this post Esperanza's Future. This was my favorite because I started out believing I would reach a certain conclusion, and it turned out that I came to the complete opposite conclusion. I based that post on a chapter that talked about a new life for Esperanza with new beginnings. I talked about how although she basically had a new life different from that on Mango street, all the things that happened to her on Mango street stayed with her for her whole life. The author hinted that Esperanza ended up writing a book about what had happened to her. This leads me to my original thought that she wrote a book to help all the people that lived on Mango street get out. This seemed pretty obvious to me because Esperanza was always sure to say how much she disliked Mango street. I said in the beginning of my post that “In the whole story Esperanza is being held back because she lives on Mango Street.” This is the first impression most people receive from reading the House on Mango Street. Later on in my writing I began to see that living on Mango street didn’t hold Esperanza back, it pushed her forward. I saw that Living on Mango street shaped the person she became, it didn’t destroy it. I later wrote “Esperanza realizes that living on Mango Street was perhaps the best thing that ever happened to her and her friends. In order to make the world a better place, she brings the one thing she always wanted to leave with her to the people of her future.” I ended up discovering that Esperanza kept what she experienced on Mango Street not only for her own good, but for the good of the people who grew up in near perfect homes on near perfect streets. They are the ones that need help, the people who grow up in poverty are the ones that know how to thrive when going through hard times. Along with this they are the ones that change the world because they see the things that need changing. This wasn’t my favorite post because of what I found out, it was my favorite because of how different my opinion was from when I started the when I finished.

What have I learned from my struggles with writer's block? Why do I tend to get stuck? How do I tend to get unstuck? Notice any patterns?

I had a much bigger problem with writers block this semester then last semester. I had a hard time writing my Vignette. I was used to writing about text not writing the actual text. I attempted to write about some events in my life that symbolized my personality at the time it was written. I travel from scared all the way to confident. To show connections between events I used common symbols in each. I used symbols for fear and failure. These themes were good, I just wasn’t able to integrate them well. Although all the required parts for this type of writing were in the short vignettes, I never seemed to write successfully. I wasn’t used to writing about things that aren’t real. Before I know that I loved writing stories much more then nonfictional things. What happened in my Vignette post, wasn’t necessarily writers block, i never ran out of ideas, I just ran out of ways to explain my ideas. I think that this happened because I felt much less pressure when writing creatively, instead of thinking hard to come up with a good piece of writing, I got lazy and wrote the first thing that came to my mind. this made my writing seem simple and not very well thought through. From this I learned that no mater what you are writing, you have to think for it to turn out good.



Where do I get my ideas for blog post topics? What inspires me to write?

It is hard for me to come up with blog topics, the best posts are actually when we are given a prompt. Although I am generally unsuccessful when coming up with my own topic, there was one post that I am proud of and enjoyed that used a prompt that I came up with. This was my post about gay marriage:

I enjoyed writing about this because I find writing about controversial things and expressing opinions on them fun. In this particular post, I said that legally gay couples should be allowed to marry, but If a church refuses to give the couple a ceremony in their establishment, then the anti gay culture must be respected and the couple not be allowed to marry in that particular church. I later continued to write that the couple can still get married, the ceremony just can’t be hosted by that particular religion. I wrote, “My personal opinion is that they should have the right to be married, but I can see why some people are against it.” I always try to show both sides of a situation or movement when writing. In order to cause change you must appeal to as many people as possible. Another post I enjoyed writing was a post for a debate about terrorism:

I think I enjoy writing about controversial things because my opinion often differs with another large groups opinion. I wrote “I believe that the best first step that can be taken against terrorists is to create an understanding between the United States Government and nonviolent Muslims.” I feel like I know what is write and the other group doesn’t, even though this may not be true, I love the struggle to see which opinion comes out on top. In this case, I took a more progressive stance against the threat towards America that can easily be responded to with violence Probably my favorite . part about English this year was the debates. I see myself as very professional and careful when arguing my opinion. There are still things that I need to work on though, for example, in the last debate, I didn’t site all of my sources so I lost credibility. This year my writing as well as thought process has matured faster then ever before, although I am not perfect, I now have a whole new perspective on my personal ability to grow along side my writing.