Tuesday, November 5, 2013

My Growth as A Reader and Writer

{ANALYSIS PARAGRAPHS}



Throughout my blogging experience, I feel as though I have grown as both a reader and a writer. As a reader, I was able to follow the books I read more easily and as a writer, I was able to place my thought process on paper in a fun and somewhat simplistic way. This growth is shown through the two blogs which I have displayed above. I have also learned to incorporate more images, links and quotes, in my newer blogs rather than my older ones. As you can see, in the earlier blog post, I have only incorporated one image of the cover in my novel. However, in the later blog post, I incorporated a summary, which was taken directly from the book, therefore making it a quote, as well as incorporated an image. This gave the reader a wide spectrum of ways to interactively read my post as well as make it more visually appealing. I also wrote longer posts near the end and felt as though I did not need to constrict the number of words in my blog post. This allowed me to be free with my writing and reading skills, therefore making me expand my writing skills. I also did not just give summaries of my book. In the beginning I simply gave a summary and what I was feeling, however near the end I gave a summary, my thoughts on the novel and predictions to what I believe is going to happen. These predictions were also true predictions, not just “they’ll all live happily ever after” predictions but predictions that I thought would really happen, as displayed in the death I predicted in Allegiant. The content of my writing had developed as for my ability to write more had expanded as well. My writing also consisted of fewer grammatical errors. For example, in the newer post I underlined my book titles but in the older post I did not. This is an easy grammatical I could of fixed, but was unaware of until I read more blogs and novels and understood the need of doing this. These are just a few of the many ways I believe I have improved as both a reader and a writer, and this is shown throughout my blogs.

I struggled a little throughout my blogging experience though. I was unable to come up with new material on the same book for multiple blogs. For example, had I have been reading the same book for more than a week, I was unable to blog about different things about it. I found it difficult to find new things to blog about on the same book. I now realize I good have blogged about predictions, questions, characters, theme and so much more, but for some reason I didn’t feel as though I could at the time and I did not. I would find a new book to blog about each time and if I was blogging about the old books multiple times, then my blogging quality would deteriorates as well as my enjoyment level. I worked through this struggle by, well, reading more, and reading other peoples’ blogs to get ideas about what more to blog on. I did have some strengths and one of the ones I had was the ability to make my blogs somewhat simplistic, so that all audience could read it, but also enjoyable so people would not get too bored. I also enjoyed the fact that I would add the tagline “thanks for reading” after every blog post of mine. I did, just barely meet my good reads reading goal. My goal was twenty books, and that is exactly the amount of books I read, 20. I used good reads mainly to track the novels I was reading but also to gain suggestions on new book that I could possibly enjoy. I found that aspect of good reads very helpful if I was ever in need of a good book suggestion. I improved as a read for I believe my reading speed has increased and I have learned to love all the books that I have read. I am also now able to more easily analyze the books I read, a quality of an improved reader.



Sunday, November 3, 2013

The Gift...

YAY!

The Gift was so much better than the first book and I was very pleasantly surprised. It started off a bit disappointing but it was really really good. It kept me on edge and I didn't want to stop reading it. Now I cannot wait to read The Fire the next book in this series.

I especially enjoyed how the characters felt more realistic in this book. In the last book, the characters were so "perfect" that it was almost unrealistic. But, in this book, the characters have many flaws, make bad decisions, fall in love, betray each other, lie, steal, and also make good decisions and save people.

The characters really developed throughout this novel. In the beginning of the book, both Whit and Whisty would have done whatever they could do save everyone, even if it was illogical. However, near the end, they learned not to trust everyone and that sometimes, it matters more to do good for everyone rather than a few people and they make risky, yet calculated decisions.

This book ended in a huge cliffhanger, so now I'm wondering what will happen in the next book. I have a few predictions...

1. I think the main characters will end up saving the world, I mean, that happens in almost every book doesn't it?

2. I think that Whit will get over Celia. She's a lost one now, I mean it's not realistic to still love her.

3. I think Byron and Whisty will end up together. As much as she hates him, I think she'll end up admiring him later.

4. I think that their parents will not have died, and somehow come back to life

and finally...

5. I predict a death. I don't know whose but I think it will be someone important who will die and I think that will be devastating to the story.

Well thanks for reading :)