When I was given this assignment, my stomach churned.  I knew it would take a lot of effort to see blogs that would be exactly the same:  the same topics of papers, responses to the same authors, even posting on the same day.  What I found when I began reading the blogs was entirely different than my first reaction to getting the assignment.

I was struck by the diversity in formats and style, as well as the different voices of my classmates that distinctly came across in their blogs.  Reading the final memoirs of the people in my group was a pleasure; I was able to see the progression and the finality of the text (at least, for some).  I especially enjoyed re-reading Joey’s memoir, and seeing the changes that he made that improved the paper so much.  Being able to experience the progression of a work is a great honor.

It was also interesting to note the differences between the writing responses.  Some articles we read inspired people to take a stand and state their opinion, while other responses were written more academic and scholarly.  Interestingly enough, generally the same articles received the same type of response.  The article by Hashimoto received more opinionated responses, probably the most of any author we read.  His controversial statements really sparked people to think.  When I read Dave’s response of Hashimoto, I thought to myself, “I had the same reaction!”  Dave pointed out that there was a distinct difference between Elbow’s voice and the biblical voice, which Hashimoto misrepresented in his text.  The key difference is that the biblical voice and all the passages quoted by the Bible, refer to God’s voice or a celestial voice.  So in this way, it was nice to see that someone else had the same reaction that I did.

The responses to the article on narcissism were also different in content, but overall, were more personable to the reader.  I really like Claire’s personal example of a time when a friend exemplified the characteristics of the narcissist.  The connection she made from reading the text and recognizing people in her life made her response more authentic.  I also liked Brandon’s quote from Star Trek and how he uses the movies he sees as a reference.  I feel that in knowing these specific examples, that I am somewhat closer to really knowing my classmates. 

This leads me to my next thought.  After reading through the blogs, I actually do feel closer to my classmates.  Even at the end of class, where we had built a good community and felt open to sharing our opinions, I didn’t know a lot of the students personally.  In reading the blogs, I feel that I have been granted access to parts of students’ lives that I didn’t experience in the classroom.  I have learned which movies were faves (Brandon, that’s you), the religious beliefs of some (Dave), and some times of difficulty of others (Kelley and Kelley). 

So my idea that the blogs were the same has been disproved.  And it has been a pleasure to read these blogs and get glimpses into the lives of people that I have worked pretty closely with the past semester.  So, for all you students graduating in 12 days, I salute you and say: Let’s hear it for the blogs.  Let’s give the students a hand…”