"From writing on a blog I am hoping that it will help me grow as a writer. I want to learn more about getting my own voice in my writing. And I think that a blog will help me learn and get better."
Wow. I can say that it is crazy to go back and read a blog from September 20, 2010 that was written by me, not that long ago. But it seems like years ago. I said that I wanted to find my voice in writing, and honestly, this year I believe I did. I think this class gave me the constant freedom to be who I wanted to be, not who I thought I should be. If I wanted to memorize a poem about a wife being abused, I could. If I wanted to write an entire essay about broken hearts, no matter how depressing it would be, I could. If I wanted to read "The Secret Life of Bees" out of the list of fifty books, I could. Being given the freedom to develop as a person and as a writer is probably the most important thing I will take from this class. When you can just write, and not have to worry about your view on the book being wrong, I think you can't help but grow in the right direction. And I think as the year went on, my blogs got deeper. I wasn't just answering the question. I was saying how I felt about it and how I could relate it to any piece of material we where reading and my own life.
Reading back through every blog, I was surprised that I could tell that I was willingly responding better. I didn't realize that I was changing. That my words where becoming something bigger than they had before. That I wasn't just reading & writing. I was interpreting and comparing. Scratching under the surface, and far below it to question the author's motives, and questioning it again tell I felt I knew where he was coming from. Maybe that poem wasn't just about a flower. Maybe it was about the root, the part no one sees. Maybe it is about the personal struggle every person goes through on earth that no one sees, because it is below the dirt line. Maybe Dickens' novel wasn't just a simple story about a boy. Maybe I could relate to it more when I saw the similarities between that story and a famous Disney one about a lonely glass slipper. And by pushing my boundaries, to places I thought I would never reach, I got better.
The first time I was assigned an essay I thought I was going to a land of nightmares where I would never be able to get a decent grade because they was no way I could have that many ideas about a single book. Not just ideas, but personal ideas. Personal views and opinions. Not someone's else. Mine. But I made it through it and I was challenged. And now an essay seem like a normal thing. A blog seem like fun. My opinion seems necessary. A poem seems like a small peek into an author's world. Honors English seems like a rational class. And writing seems like a hobby.
"You'd know how the time flies. Only yesterday was the time of our lives. We where born and raised, in a summer haze. Bound by the surprise of our glory days."- Adele
When I look back at my blogs, the main thing see is that I have moved forward. I have learned. And I have grown. From my first blog saying I wanted to find my voice. To my "Boo Radley" being death. To my fairy tale Prince Charming being compared to Great Expectations. I will miss this class so much. I can't think of a better way to start off every morning of my freshman year, because I had a great class! And yes Mrs. Gilman, I will read over the summer, just not anything involving Charles Dickens! (:
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