Week 6, Post 3: Preliminary Self-Assessment

Do a preliminary self-evaluation of your blogs thus far.  Things to think about:
What makes a "good" posting for you as a writer of your own blog?
What make as "good" posting for you as a reader of other people's blogs?
In your reading, writing and commenting on blogs, what's useful for you in developing your own thinking?     
What "grade" would you give yourself? At this point let's just use CHECK or CHECK-PLUS or CHECK-MINUS as grades.  Explain your grade.

I feel a real sense of accomplishment when, after thinking about the points raised regarding the classwork, I can synthesize what I've learned, or am learning, then to reach beyond that to integrate this with my personal experience or beliefs.  Writing my blog, I've found, feels different from writing other academic papers in that I'm freer to use my own personal voice.  This is what I love about writing in general -- expressing myself.  My blog, then, allows me to re-examine or re-discover what we've been discussing, plus it gives me a much more significant personal stake in the process, since I'm encouraged to be myself and express myself.

Compared with some of my colleagues, I've found that it's much harder for me than expected to add some fresh departure after reading, writing and synthesizing, but this exactly what I, as a reader, find stimulating.  (I suspect this is because some others have many years of comp instruction experience to draw from, while I have almost none.  Oh well...)  As a reader, this is both exciting and challenging for me when I read something by a student who has an unusual perspective.  It encourages me to look at an issue from multiple angles and to speak my mind, rather than follow my age-old tendency to write for the teacher.

I find I'm learning a great deal from the postings.  Occasionally, I get a great deal more from reading an usual posting.  One case comes to mind (though from my 709 class) where a student tore off on a bit of a rant about a text we'd read.  I was impressed and a bit intimidated by how much this person knew about the topic, and how personally she was taking it.  Her post was so well-informed and so assertive, I found myself seeking her out to discover more about her and the way she teaches.  Sometimes our own colleagues are our richest resources.

Assessing myself feels awkward as hell, to be frank, especially the idea of getting naked in front of others, revealing, confessing.  However, I put a lot, sometimes enormous amounts, of thought and time into my posts, so that degree of effort should count for something.  I feel the content of my posts reflects someone who's truly engaged with the question at hand and the course overall.  Most important, I find that I'm learning a lot of useful things and growing as a student and as a teacher, so I have to say this development, together with the effort and content of my blog puts me in the "CHECK-PLUS" category.