Blog Wrap up and Reflection

Overall, we enjoyed working together on this blog project. From the beginning we were very organized and decided that we would alternate weeks for writing the blog post--this made it a fair distribution of the work load. A few times we would ask to switch with another group member because they were really busy that particular week or were really interested in a certain book or short story we read. Unanimously, we agreed that we enjoyed the aspect of our blog. It gave us the opportunity to expand on ideas or themes that we liked or wanted to explore further. Initially, our blog theme was to look at how gender and identity was portrayed through literature in the 19th Century. Looking back at our posts (we had to switch a few blogs in from Tumblr to Blogger because the comment issue was too complicated!) we started off sticking to this theme of gender and identity in our readings, but as the semester goes on we veer off from this idea and start writing about whatever interested us. We actually think that this made our blog stronger because by not sticking to the original theme of the blog it allowed us to freely write and explore various topics that the "gender and identity" theme would have restricted us from pursuing that.

This semester long blog project was definitely one of our favorite aspects of the class because it allowed us to express our opinions each week on our readings and, most importantly, to ask questions. Using the blog as a medium allowed us to ask questions regarding the text in a "safe" way. We really appreciated that Dr. Campbell took the  time to read and comment each week on our posts--she generated some real thought to her questions and helped us further our understanding and critical thinking into our readings each week. Also, by having to comment on another group's blog it allowed us to read what other groups had to say--this aspect of the blog assignment was fun and interesting. One blog in particular that I (Hayley) enjoyed commenting on was "Bower Tree"--Floricel Gonzales, Holly Matteson, and Corinna Thornton--because they were always on top of things and had their post up early rather than waiting until 8:55pm to hit the "submit" button. On a deeper level, I felt that they really  took the time and effort into their posts each week, which made it interesting to read and comment on!

British Lit For The Win was a success and we learned a lot about 19th Century British Literature.