I have never typed this much in my life. I have had other online classes before, but mostly they were just focused on reading and short quizzes, so this has been quite an adjustment. It has been nice though to have fun with learning new things. I never would have created a blog, for instance, but I’m happy that I know how now. Thanks Dr. Gibbs.
My favorite writing this week has been the retelling of a nursery rhyme. I never would have thought to recreate someone else’s story as my own. My rendition was rather dark, however. I’m usually not that pessimistic. Maybe blogging just brings out my honest, cruel side… Laugh!
All the writing that I have done lately has been science-based. I’m always worried that writing in the first person will make me sound arrogant. Trying to keep the number of possessive pronouns to a minimum is very difficult. I read a blog by someone in our class who seemed to not care how many she used. She was very confident with her writing. I guess that’s what you have to do when composing a blog. It’s supposed to be about you, right? I hope to conform my style to her’s eventually. I want to sound more confident but not arrogant. Let me know if I’m tending to lean more towards the latter.
The thing I do enjoy and respect about this class is how open the material is. My boyfriend works for the library to try to find open (free) textbooks and other educational resources. Dr. Gibbs has done a great job of compiling different stories and other sources of great information that is reliable. Hopefully, we can all publish our stories with the mindset of sharing and promoting future education. Three cheers for good, free education!
Personal photo of my overused keyboard with a missing tab key.
Oh my gosh, Skye, I am such a doofus... I just realized that the Cody Taylor of your rhyme story is THE Cody Taylor, of OU Libraries blogging fame!!! HOW COOL! I was just sharing a tweet from Stacy (Cody works with Stacy there, and Stacy is one of my friends from OU from wayyyyyyyy back in time), and I realized that you had shared that picture of a Cody Taylor... and then (lightbulb goes on!) I realized that yes, this is the Cody Taylor who shares all the great stuff about maker movement at the OU Libraries blog. And sure enough, you wrote about that in this blog post. Wow! Small world!!! Please tell Cody hello from me... and he is proof positive of the power of blogging. Without blogs, I never would have known about the great stuff he is doing there at the OU Library, but thanks to blogging, I have learned A LOT from him this year. Now you just need to get him to go over to the IT Store and print you out a new tab key with their 3D printer, ha ha. I don't have any missing keys right now but there is some serious cat fur trouble that is probably going to start resulting in typos if I don't do something about it... :-)
ReplyDeleteSkye: I completely agree with your comments on the challenges of balancing first-person narratives and impersonal, detached science writing. It does often seem as though they are two entirely different animals but, as I'm sure you agree, it is fun to develop both sides of the issue. It seems interesting that many science majors don't enjoy narrative storytelling, as you do; I wonder why? In my opinion, creative writing not only allows you to think with fewer restrictions, it also lets you explore the themes in life that interest you most or perturb your soul most deeply. And, to boot, it's undeniably useful in thinking about how to spin scientific ideas (abstracts, proposals, etc.) into a presentation that will be both relevant and irresistibly engaging to a wider audience.
ReplyDeleteSkye, I totally agree with your assessment about how much work this class really takes to do well. When I first started this class, I was a bit overwhelmed because like you I had never written a blog before. It has been quite a learning experience and I will always treasure this class because of how many new things I learned during this class session.
ReplyDeleteI can understand your frustrations with learning how to use the right word tense and pronoun usage as well. It is very hard to switch from writing professional type papers to writing stories of your own. The writing techniques are from completely different sides of the world, it seems. Lol
I really enjoyed reading your storytelling for week 13 and I look forward to reading more of your work as the semester ends. Good job!