Reflective Essay Final

This year I have been blogging about a variety of different topics such as book reviews, small vignettes, and many classmate response posts as well as random free writes.  The free writes and classmates’ posts have helped my learn to blog about my own opinion  and helped show me that not all writing is boring. It makes me like having a blog  since I am normally used to the essays we write in class with structured topics and guidelines we have to follow. Bloggjng has made me appreciate writing a bit more.

Writing response posts to my classmates’ blogs helps me become a better thinker because it is a chance for me to review a topic and think about it in my own opinion. For example, mainly at the beginning of the year there were a couple of topics that got a lot of attention. These were good because people were able to state their own opinions on the topic and they could be compared to other peoples' responses and the original post. It was pretty much like online debating. There were a couple of these types of posts this year; one of them were about the topic on what it really means to be "emo" or "scene". A lot of people seemed interested in this topic and I think it was interesting in a good way for people to state their own opinions on the debate. It was a good opportunity for people to think about their own opinions and respond to others. Writing this blog has also helped me become a better writer, especially in the posts where we had to talk about current books we were reading in class. Writing these posts have also helped me become a better reader as well. This is because since we had to use quotes from the books as evidence for whatever point we were trying to prove, it made me read more closely and helped me learn how to analyze books and pay more attention for underlying meanings and messages. This tactic also helped me become a better writer because it helped me learn how to use evidence and quotations to prove my points and ideas.

    I like having a blog, mainly when we were able to do free topic posts and did not have to follow any guidelines. It was a good way to get out random ideas or feelings out by writing about them. Also, having a blog has made me think differently about writing in general. Usually I do not like writing because I don't like the whole process of going through three drafts with edits and changing parts. However, having this blog made me see that writing doesn't always have to be tedious and boring. When I was able to write about whatever topic I wanted to and respond to who ever's blog I wanted to, it made me realize that writing can be okay when you aren't restricted my rules of an assignment. Having this blog has also somewhat taught me about the way I can think about things. For example, when I respond to someone else's blog, I could either agree with what they are writing about or not. Sometimes the topics are very small and not very meaningful, but they can still bring up ideas in my head and give me a new way at looking at certain things. Other times the topic could be something very important that I can give my opinion and thoughts on. Blogging has changed the way I write in a way because when I would do free topic posts or response posts I didn't seem to worry as much about how my tone of voice sounded like I normally would if I was writing an essay. I liked this because I didn't feel stressed out or anything about sounding “professional” or not. All in all, blogging has made me realize writing isn't always boring, made me think about things differently, and helped me feel less restricted about my writing.

    As I mentioned before, writing on a blog is very different from the structured writing that is normally required in school. Usually when there is a writing assignment given in class there are a large set of guidelines that need to be followed in order to get a good grade. This sort of structured writing is good for practicing the more difficult types of writing we will have to do in college, but it can sometimes be very unpleasant and makes me not like writing. However, when we have blog assignments that are not book reviews or other strict writing assignments, it makes writing not as bad as I normally feel about it. When I am able to freely choose pretty much whatever I want to write about, it is not as hard for me to come up with ideas as it is sometimes when I have a guided writing assignment in most of my classes. Also, the rule that we have to use a quote from one of our peers' blogs when we are doing a response post has been good practice for writing this year. This year in many classes when we have an essay to write it is normally a requirement for the paper to use commentary details and then respond with commentary. This has been something we used in all of our response posts and book reviews throughout the year on our blogs and it is good practice for other classes as well.

    For next year, some goals I have are to blog more. Maybe not necessarily on this blog, but I would continue to do this because it is a good way to practice and become a better writer with out feeling like you are restricted. I also want to work on my tone and the way i sound when I am writing as a goal for next quarter/ year. I will try to continue blogging even if I am not in your class anymore

Book review final draft

In the realistic fiction book Crank by Ellen Hopkins, the life of a teenage girl Kristina is followed as she spirals down in life from addiction to crystal meth. In the story, Kristina goes and visits her father in Albaquerqe one summer where she first tries “the monster” which is what crank is oftenly referred to in the story. Once she returns home she vows that it was only a one time thing, but she ends up continuing her drug use once she gets back home. I believe that Hopkins' target audience for this book are teenagers, ages fourteen and up. I also know that the author's purpose in writing this book is to express events that effected her family.

Based on the topics discussed throughout the story, this book appears to be aimed at a teenagers from the age of 14+. The experiences and thoughts that the main character, Kristina goes through can easily be relatable to many teens today. Obviously, this book is mainly focused on drugs and one issue based on this is experimentation that many teens want to go through during their youth. 

" 'You don't smoke do you? I took a small puff. Struggled like hell not to cough. (pg.75)... It had been a tempstuous week, snared by emotions rubbing me so raw  I hurt at night... So when he asked about getting high, I didn't think, I agreed. We smoked some good California green (pg.85)... "' 'Okay, little girl. Ready to party?' Mom expected me home in ten days. Of course I was sure. Like magic, a mirror and razor blade appeared. I watched him pour powder, yellowish white.(pg.88)."

These three quotes from sections throughout the book are very important in explaining how Kristina slowly gets closer and closer to the drug that ruins her life. She first tries a cigarette, weed, and then "the Monster", crank. Also, I realized that every time she experiments with a new drug, it is under the influence of the boy Adam she met while visiting her dad in Albuquerque.  These two issues of "young love" and divorced parents are also a major part of some teenagers lives. Kristina felt very safe with Adam and they both loved each other so she trusted him and began her experimentation with him. However, when her visit is over and she goes back home to her mom, her and Adam break up and she rarely hears from her dad. She begins rebelling at home, meeting different boys, continuing her use of crank sneaking out of the house, etc. This is also relatable to many teenagers lives because while not every teen does crank  or drugs we all go through a stage where we feel like rebelling against our parents at least some point in our lives. Because of all of the events that take place in the main characters life, i believe that the author's targeted audience for this book are teenagers.
After reading the author's note at the beginning of this book, I have learned exactly how this book reflects Ellen Hopkins' life.

"While this work is fiction, it is loosely based on a very true story- my daughter's... The monster did touch her life, and the lives of her family. My family."

In this book, crank is often referred to as "the Monster".  Just after reading this particular section of the book about the author's life, it is pretty obvious that she wrote it about her daughter and the struggles her drug addiction put on the author and her family. As the reader, we already know that Kristina is soon going to find a way to get crank once she arrives back home. The  author's note also mentions a baby at the end of the book.

“The “baby' at the end of the book is now seven years old, and my husband and I

have adopted him. He is thriving now, but it took a lot of extra love.

Towards the end of this book, Kristina gets pregnant after being raped by one of her classmates on a date. When she finds this out, she makes a promise to herself and the baby that she will not use drugs ever again and that she will be a good mom for her child. Unfortunately, once the child is born Kristina quickly breaks that promise and leaves her family and her child to go back to crank. I also visited the authors website, and learned that Hopkins and her husband have raised her daughter's child all his life. I haven't found any information on the author's real daughter, but I do know that she is not a part of her family or her child's life. The same is for Kristina I believer, an the author has written one other book about this same topic, about Kristina.

Peer Review Comments

Billy: I think you should write more about the actual relationship between these two characters. it seems like you sort of just explain Zero and X-Ray as people, but you don't really expand on their relationship between each other, if that's what you're trying to do.

Sam: *will be visible after comment is excepted.


Vinh:I thing that in order to make this post stronger you should include which book you like better. Also, is the other book Eragon written by the same author as this book you are reading now, or are they written by different authors and you are comparing the two because you find good points of comparisons for them?