Reflection on course blog

On the whole, I have been very impressed with our course blog, in terms of both its content and its originality. I feel as though as a class we have done a wonderful job in coming up with insightful observations and wording them in original, thought-provoking questions. It is interesting to review the blog posts now that we are almost done with the class, as they essentially provide a mirror to the strengths and weaknesses of both the class structure and the individual classes themselves. Towards the middle of the blog, for example, the subjects being posted got fairly repetitive; we had several in a row that were entirely focused on the rhetoric of disease, and we found ourselves straining to find new topics. This could be taken as a sign that we spent too long in this class covering this particular topic, that we were effectively beating a dead horse. We had several blogs, however, on both the government's and our own roles in the public good, each having fresh new perspectives and ideas. Perhaps, then, we should have spent longer on this subject, as it seems as though we could have said even more on this subject. I do wish we had discussed the blog more often in class. There were some very insightful comments made every week that rarely got any credit. In short, I feel as though the course blog was a very helpful tool, but I would make it a larger focus of the class.

Course Wrap-Up

The blog gives the impression that we are a class of conscientious students who care about these issues and the context that they have in our lives. This blog reveals the themes and topics that we covered comprehensively in this course. The most significant discussions in this blog were pertaining to illness and metaphor, stereotypes, and the connection between these issues and the public good. These are the topics that brought our opinions and thoughts to the forefront. The final conclusions that I can draw from this blog are that it greatly added to what I learned about rhetoric and thinking in this class. It made me aware of everyone in the class's opinions and what others can offer in way of new perspectives and outlooks.

The other last blog

The blog provided an excellent avenue for expressing my opinion about the different issues presented in the class.  I really enjoyed the fact that we can extended discussion from the classroom.  Nonetheless, I think that the most significant aspect of the blog is that it can kind of serve as a vault in time much like the seed bank being established in northern Norway.  If the world were to be wiped out, save for a few million people, they could access our blog: Engaged Rhetoric and study what it takes to form the basis for society.  Our blog really could be the Sparknotes for polis building.  Who knows, maybe one day people will write laws and mandates in acrostic poetry.  Of course Project Angel Heart, or some manifestation of PAH, will become the mainstay of every family's mantelpiece, but more importantly, their and our focus on AIDS will lead to an absence of social stigmas.  This may be because of its lack of importance in a world recovering from massive population loss, yet our explanations concerning the problems in associating people of a particular set to AIDS will serve as a bulwark against much social prejudice.  

Assuming that this massive population loss will occur at the hands of nuclear warfare, there is a strong possibility that birth defects will become commonplace.  Thus our blog will show people that there is nothing wrong or different with people, who have eight eyes or eight legs.  I can thoroughly and honestly say that a society built off of our blog will make an excellent society.  

Reflections: openness of thought

I find it interesting that the blog allowed us to essentially step outside of the class and view it from an outward perspective, considering what our involvement and our service learning at PAH really meant from a larger perspective. I think we posted and responded with incredible honesty, particularly when considering the role of 'forced volunteering.' In re-reading our posts, I see an openness in sharing thoughts and a willingness to look at the class and our service learning from "outside the box" (sorry, cliched expression...) I think this ultimately made for a healthy and productive learning experience.

Wrap Up

This blogging experience was significant because it's the first time a class has ever gone in this direction. I like the intimate atmosphere provided through this out-of-the-box classroom discussion. I do wish that every week we had gone over what was talked about earlier in the blog, that way we could incorporate the ideas further in to our learning and we could comment on one another's opinions and "present" our own posts. Maybe we should have posted one blog a week also, instead of two, that way it would be more indepth and meaningful and we would be less inclined to hate our lives everytime we had to sign on and complete a blog! It has been fun, the whole blog-deal, but it could be perfected and the process could be made more smooth.

Reflection

I have really enjoyed this method of responding to class. It gave me an opportunity outside of class to reflect on what we had discussed, to think about what had been said without having to think quickly before the topic passed.

I believe that the blog we have produced represents the discussions and class topics well. You can see the occasional frustration and anxiety as well as the passion through our writings. I would hope that to the rest of the world this blog shows the depth to which we analyzed the issues of the public good and illness while learning about their place in society and our developing world. Due to the fact that all the posts were written by the students and the topics as well were openly created by the students, I think that this blog is a significant representation of student opinion and learning in this class. Rarely do you encounter a situation in which a teacher allows the students to create the topics for response and I believe that this gave us a greater amount of freedom to discuss the issues that we personally had with the material and to tie up any loose ends from class that we wanted to continue to discuss. By giving the students the freedom to lead the blog, the blog seems more realistic and personal. It was created by the students about the topics that we personally wanted to discuss rather than forcing us to respond to issues raised by the teacher. Even though I'm sure the issues still would have been thought provoking, it gave us our own chance to lead and reflect as a class.

Although keeping up with the new posts was at times difficult, I really enjoyed this method of reflection. It was simple and innovative considering the amount of time that we as students spend on the internet. No other teacher I have had has used a method like this to enhance our learning outside of the classroom. I think it was a very beneficial method and I hope that other teachers will use something similar in the future. It just goes to show how taking chances can create success, not to mention a deeper understanding.

LAST BLOG!!!

Because this is our class' final blog, we wanted to do something a little bit different. Taking the phrase "public good", write an acrostic poem. List the letters vertically down the screen like this:

P
U
B
L ...

and used each letter to write a word that you feel relates to the "public good". Don't stress, it's easy and even fun! Show us your creativity, you could also have individual phrases coming off of each letter and each phrase could even RHYME!

Don’t hold back,
Travis and Sarah