Reflective Blog Essay

Stephen Allerding
ENG 308J
March 18, 2009
Reflective Blog Essay


Never have I ever written in a blog, not including Facebook, before I took this class. When Professor Rouzie told us that all our work would be done and posted into our own blog, I was kind of skeptical. Personally, technology and computers are a weak point for me, so having to figure out how to start a blog and post things to it seemed annoying to me. After actually setting up my blog, everything was pretty easy from then on. It was a very simple process to write something and post it to a blog. Doing this made English 308J a unique class to me, causing interest to see what kind of things we would write about. I was a bit unconvinced about the whole class being based on the environment. I love the environment and try to do my part to keep it clean, but I just don’t find it real interesting to write about. My opinion on that has changed a little though. Over the quarter we have read some fascinating forms of rhetoric and our blogs have accumulated very nicely.

We started out writing about a place we know well. This was nice for me because I was able to reflect on some good memories I have had in the past. This helped lead into our first essay, which was a personal persuasive paper. Writing this essay helped me understand the concepts of writing rhetorically a little better. I was able to put myself in the paper and make it emotional, yet credible.

After our first essay, came some rhetorical readings by George Monbiot and McDonough and Braungart. Monbiot’s writing was very pleasant to read in a rhetorical sense. His ethos, pathos, and logos were especially clear to read and understand. The Cradle to Cradle reading was extremely engaging. Throughout the whole reading the authors are constantly asking the reader questions, making them feel like part of a conversation.

Perhaps my favorite blog posting was the one we did on effective and ineffective arguments of rhetoric for an issue coming up in our next paper. Effective rhetoric is great, but ineffective rhetoric is just hilarious. This exercise was a nice eye opener. Our next paper was my least favorite. I just could not think of an issue that really interested me enough to write a whole essay on it. I did it anyway, but it was one of the worst things I have ever written.

Our final blog post on a reading was about Pollan. This was my favorite reading because it talked about animals. I love animals, but I also love eating meat. The way many factory farms treat livestock is just appalling, making me embarrassed to be called a human. Animals should be free range and treated with respect before we slaughter them for a meal. They deserve that at least.

Extra credit is always a pleasant surprise, which came in the form of a PBS Special about the “Green Economy”. Blogging about this was cool because it was all talking about how much our economy and cities are trying to be more “green” and the unique ways they are accomplishing that.

Our final essay and blog post was about local sustainability. I did mine on Casa Nueva. This was a great assignment because I was able to learn so much about the importance and benefits of buying food locally. I enjoy the beer selection at Casa, but after my interview, the food tasted even better. It’s nice to learn so much about a community I was not a part of before college, but I am a part of now.

Posting all these blog topics enabled us to make our group blogs. All of these group blogs should be very interesting to read, due to the topics and the fact that we all should be blog masters after taking this class. Being in a class based around one blog and then our individual blogs was a very good way to communicate and bring the class together. It was a nice way to teach a class.