Genevieve Ashenfelter

A couple weeks ago during my “spring cleaning” ritual, I was going through boxes of old high school and college papers from my various English Comp and Literature courses. Looking at these rough drafts made me think about this class and the differences, both good and bad, from my online journalism class experience. These forgotten pages were covered with red marks from teachers as well as class peers correcting grammatical errors and giving me helpful storyline suggestions as only an outsiders perspective can give. Reading through these comments brought back to mind the hours I had spent in front of a computer struggling to make my mediocre ramblings into something worth reading. My purpose in bringing this up is to point out how helpful these comments were for me in understanding what I was doing wrong and how to become a better writer. I had been somewhat unsatisfied with the peer commentaries on the blogs as they were limited mostly to variations of “Great Job” and “I really enjoyed your post”. Of course it is always best to be positive and kind when commenting on someone’s writing, but when lacking a proper analysis with honest observations these rudimentary comments can actually have an adverse affect on the development of a person’s ability to write well. I really enjoyed reading every post and I found the distinct differences in writing style extremely interesting but somehow I felt any in-depth critique would seem out of place among the other comments.

These thoughts of course have nothing to do with my feelings about the class in general which has been a fun challenge and a learning experience. I benefitted greatly from the assignments, especially since they gave me a reason to search out things about my community that I had never known before and had taken for granted. I was able to delve more deeply into political situations I hadn’t know much about before such as the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment proceedings and the Vision 2030 plan for Lino Lakes. The freedom Rich gave was a great way to stretch my mental legs and explore the stimulating world of online journalism. I had a wonderful semester reading all your posts and gaining insights from your perspective. Thank You.