State of Essay 2 Draft

By far, essay 2 has been really enjoyable to write.  I did not get a lot of my draft done because I was struggling with the structure of my essay and am being too picky about what textual evidence would fit better with my thesis and go with my supporting data. I think my essay 2 compared to essay 1 by far has more context and textual evidence to support my thesis which will make essay much stronger.  I'm looking forward to getting constructive feedback from the two peers that are reading my essay.  I would love any type of advice, but would really appreciate advice on a better thesis.  Essay 2, here I come! 

Where am I going with Essay 2?

With essay 2, I plan on using more textual and concise evidence to build a strong and productive essay.  I am going to be using Kathleen C. West's article, Rettberg's book, and a source of my own to support my researched blogger's identity.  Nick Sundt, the blogger that I am following who dedicated his whole blog to climate change awareness is very passionate about what he is doing.  What I am struggling with is constructed my essay and where I should place each precise details in which paragraph.  Otherwise, I think I will do pretty well on this essay.

Essay 2 & West

I think I am going to go ahead with prompt 1 or 2.  I am caught in the middle between which of the prompts I want to do.  I want to learn more about myself as a blogger and find my true identity as who I am as a writer by analyzing my blogging styles and voice.  I loved how West used connections with three of her student's blogs with her own and how they found their identity through blogging.  I am excited to learn more about myself and my writing with prompt 1 or 2 for this specific essay assignment.  In her article, she used a guidelines chart that I might be overlooking as well to find my identity.

Myself as a blogger?

What I have noticed so far about my own blog entries is that I am pretty descriptive and engaging. In my last blog, I talked instinctively about Kathleen C. West’s article, "Weblogs and literary response: Socially situated identities and hybrid social languages in English class blogs," and discovered that I tend to write in a story telling angle rather than an explanatory angle in this specific blog post and others as well. I noticed that I use simple language throughout my writing.  I identified myself as being descriptive and juvenile.  For example,”... she talks about the effectiveness of web-blogging and the importance of students interacting with each other through blogging rather than literacy.” I am precise and descriptive in the above mentioned quote from my previous blog by using simple language.  

Significance of West

Kathleen C. West's article, "Weblogs and literary response: Socially situated identities and hybrid social languages in English class blogs," West seeks to find the nature of communication through web-blogging.  I find it significant that she has a lot of supporting data from researchers and statistics that show how communication is more likely to be higher through internet interaction. I find it more interesting that her article is so in depth with information-it sort of like a novel (essay written).  In Kathleen C. West’s article, she talks about the effectiveness of web-blogging and the importance of students interacting with each other through blogging rather than literacy. 

Essay 1 taught me...

Essay 1 taught me how to construct my ideas through argumentative writing.  I reviewed outlining my ideas into sections labeled; thesis, body paragraph 1, body paragraph 2, body paragraph 3, and conclusion.  I sectioned off each key element of identity into a body paragraph and gave each paragraph a transition word.  I took my thesis statement and used it to follow up in my conclusion.  Outlining helped me construct my ideas because my ideas are usually scrambled all over my essay and placed in any given paragraph I started to write.  I noticed that I am more organized about writing an essay such as this one due to my essay outline and I will continue to use this throughout my life when writing an essay or constructing a simple letter.  Therefore, essay 1 has taught me how to control my ideas by constructing a outline.  

They Say, I Say relations with revisions

From reading parts 3-4 in the book, They Say, I Say- what I can do to my essay revisions is by connecting all my sentences together and figuring out the flow of my essay.  I can disect each of my sentence and see if I can replace some words with better more descriptive words.  I can use better transitional words, cause-effect words, conclusion words, and comparison-contrast words in order to make my essay a better one.