My Overall Learning Experience

Learning Experience
Image from blogs.usm.maine.edu

My last blog for my English 102 class is a reflection of how I have grown throughout the course as a writer and a thinker. I took a look back to all the blogs I have done and I can see a big difference. Writing blogs is something I never thought I would do. Starting from the design and the font, to the title it was a learning experience. I have learned how to better put my ideas together and become a better writer and my skills have expanded from blog 1 to blog 15. It is interesting how my vocabulary have grown and expanded giving me the advantage to write longer paragraphs. The ability to connect the text with other sources such as my own experience and other texts has made my blogs more comprehensible to the public. Some descriptions that best describe my blogs are:

The blog entries
• organize the writer’s ideas around a main point.
• connect the texts with other texts in the packet, texts outside class, or personal experience
• are written in a clear, easy-to-read style

The writer

• selects graphics and multimedia to enhance the blog's visual appeal

• writes in an appealing style that reflects her/his personality

• stimulates class dialogue by extending the discussion in new directions

My online writing experience for this semester has been very productive. It has helped me write faster and accurate. It also, has helped me enhance my vocabulary by learning more synonyms and correcting my words with spelling checks. The experience of writing online helps me to organize my ideas before putting it in writing, giving me the advantage to erase and rewrite more efficiently. By writing blog entries my abilities as a writer have improve greatly, just the simple fact that I know other people are going to look at it makes me bring out the best of me. Now every time I write I try to make it perfect and understandable so that my message and ideas get across more easily.  Just as I like my classmate and professor to read my blogs, I also like to do the same with their blogs. Reading other people’s blogs give me the opportunity to provide and receive feedbacks and to realize that I share common ideas with other people. Therefore, I very often read other’s students online work. I believe that other member of the class have often read my blogs. I have received many feedback and suggestion that have helped me to change and improve my work.

The first lesson I will be taking away from this class and the most important is that I have improve my writing skills significantly. I had also learned how to blog and post my ideas online to receive feedbacks from others. Everything we have discussed is basically what a student would want to learn from his/her English class and the professor has explain in depth every topic and assignment. A memorable moment in class was the Much Ado Jeopardy game. We had fun and enjoyed it; the anxiety of being called to answer the question and answers it right for our team was pretty exciting and rewarding. My recommendation to a student who plans to take this class next semester is to read the books, write and submit all his/her blogs on time and take advantage of all the extra credit the professor may give to the class.  

Self evalution and Reflection

Much Ado About Nothing
Image from themoviepool.com

Blog fourteenth is one of my favorites blog. Once again I have the chance to choose one of my previous blog and talk about what makes me feel proud of. I also can identify it with what I have learned from the readings in the class. The one I have chosen is blog thirteenth; I feel it was one of the hardest blog I have done in the entire class. The amount of time and dedication I put in this blog was tremendous. Trying to understand Shakespeare vocabulary in this play was one of my biggest challenges.

From the in class reading and quizzes of the play Much Ado About Nothing, I have learned about many things. One of them is the meaning of the literary terms comedy and tragedy in a play. It is interesting how Shakespeare integrated these two kind of literary terms in a single play. Watching the film version of the play made a big different for the class because it helped me have a better understanding of what the play was about and why they expressed themselves the way they did. It also taught me a littler history of how women were treated in those days. Some were treated as a goddess and other were treated as shrew.

I believe that the ending of this play was really interesting, is not usual to see a double happy ending in a play and the way Shakespeare made it happen it was really creative. He uses death in order to rebirth the characters' “true selves”.

Double Happy Ending

Double Happy Ending
Image from botstudent.org

The third set of series of the play Much Ado About Nothing is my blog thirteenth for my English 102 class. This ne is going to be about the symbolic meaning of the unmasked ceremony.

In the play, the unmasked ceremony served as a symbolic meaning to clear Hero’s name and prove that she was innocent from the accusation Claudio had made in front of everyone all Messina.  In order to do that she had to reborn herself  from death. Another important symbolic meaning was that Claudio accepted to marry Hero's cousin as instructed by Leonato just as a punishment for what he had done to Hero. Claudio felt that he had made a big mistake by accusing Hero of being unfaithful in front  of the entire Messina, without having sufficient proof nor confirming it with her. A new Hero was reborn because it was the only way for her to clear her name and prove that she was mistakenly accused of something that she did not do.

Claudio also had to reborn himself. When accepted Leonato's proposal to marry his niece in order to pay for his wrong accusations to Hero. He had accused Hero in front of  all the witnesses of the wedding of something he was not even sure about, before even listening to what she had to say. From that point Claudio became a new person, he learned from his mistake. Beatrice and Benedick were unmasked by accepting their true love in from of everybody, something they had been in denial for so long.

Beatrice and Benedick have revealed themselves in front of everyone. They have shown unconditional love to each other against their own will. They have reborn themselves as new characters in the play, changing their status from being single characters and thinking of themselves as longtime bachelors to being truly in love with each other and belonging to someone other than themselves.

In a way, this double happy ending for me was perfect. First of all. it surpassed my expectations as a reader with the way it ends; by having both marriages at the same time. Also it made the story a lot more interesting at the end, it felt like Claudio did not know what he had until he thought he had lost it. Also, Benedick who bragged, would stop being a bachelor because he found his true love.