Response: Blog vs Term and Essayification

Matt Richtel, author of the “Blogs vs. Term Paper” article in The New York Times, talks about the controversial issue of new media and technology, and how it could benefit to aggregate this new form of “learning” into the schools’ current curriculum. With such a drastic change to the strict traditional way of learning, there are always those who find a flaw in a new proposal of gathering information. Blogging is a new form of communication, only recently becoming common in the 90’s. Many English professors and other English majors find this new medium perfect for getting information across with instantaneous feedback. Students who use this new medium, instead of the monotonous essay-format, find it an exhilarating change for the better. Personally, I find blogging as a more productive form of writing in an educational environment. Young people are always classified as impulsive, accompanied by reckless, no matter how intelligent they seem to be. Blogs allows feedback within a few seconds, and gives the whole prompt more meaning by just knowing that someone other than a professor is going to read the essay. Students put more effort into a blog, so as to impress hundreds of people, as a way of satisfying themselves personally, and not just for a grade.

The essay itself is uncertain, and classified as an attempt, very similar to what a blog represents, an uncertain opinion and an attempt to get a point across to a larger audience. “The essayification of everything,” a term used by Christy Wampole means that life itself is a protracted attempt. Essays are short and portable, and uncertain, much like the human mind. Wampole also describes the people as non-thinking before they speak, write, or blog. Blogs, the human mind, and essays all clash together in this aspect, and therefore I find only reasonable that blogging and other forms of technology be taught in schools, of course with a balance of traditional academics. Studies have shown that technology, even just browsing the web in an educational manner, has modified the brain to think in a different way, more impatient. Essays have always been accepted, and now blogs are changing the way essay writing is coming to be. The new technology of blogging is again only expanding the ambiguity of what an essay is defined to be, as it is now not just considered a traditional written form, but has also expanded to new mediums such as video, pictures, and blogging.

I find essays as a blank canvas that the writer can choose if and when their writings are considered essays, and blogs definitely expand that genre. Technologies that adapt to the modern age of digitalization can change the way that the public thinks, and this realm of uncertainty is usually accompanied by critics against those breaking tradition. Balance is key, students should be introduced and familiarized with the technology they will be exposed to in the “real world,” without losing the traditional learnings of literature.

Introducing Me

Hello people of the internet, no I'm not a hilarious cat video, but I do consider myself and an amusing person to talk to. I will further refer to  myself as AF, and this post is mostly going to be me introducing myself to you, the public.

My childhood was not so great. With only 50 dollars to my family's name, it is no mystery as to why. I was quickly accustomed to not asking for anything in the store. No matter how much I may have wanted that chocolate bar, and me being unaware of the financial situation at the time, my mother would simply have to deny me anything that was not a necessity. Close to my middle school years, however, my family made the gamble of buying our own house after years of savings and building up our credit score. Now there was someplace I could truly call home. Unfortunately, that dream was nothing but that, a dream. In the 2008 "little depression," we lost our home and were on the search for somewhere to live before we got evicted. Now we live in Napa, in a small home that we rent; it's nothing compared to our old house, but it's fine, with just enough room for the four of us.

Those were my early years, and although there were many more bumps to that road, they have made me stronger and I appreciate everything I have as a gift. There is, however, more to me than simply my past. I enjoy soccer and used to play as a child, but I have week ankles and before I knew it, my soccer career was over before it had even began. I love to draw traditionally and digitally. The latter I just recently discovered was not only a possibility to cartoonists, but to everyone, of course for a rather large fee. When I'm not wasting my life doing homework, I help my mom around the house, cleaning, cooking, and maintaining the two dogs I have, constantly fighting for all of the attention. My younger sister usually entertains me when I get so bored I start to roll on the floor. I'm not so sure as to how many other people actually enjoy math and science, but I must be one of the selected few. These are my best subjects, and they also fall into my favorites. I have always been relatively advanced in math, and now in high school, I like being challenged with ridiculous math my brain could never imagine.

My family is doing much better financially now; we actually go on vacations every now and then, I got a car for my 17th birthday, and even though we still don't have a house to call our own, it won't be soon before we gamble that again. My grades are fine, I love my parents and my sister, and I have extremely supportive friends who seem like extensions of me at times. The next struggle of my life is now college...and I don't know where I want to go or what I want to study, so with that said, I'll end my blog here because I never know what the future holds, but hopefully I'll figure it out soon.