Sample Blogs

Here are some examples of the kinds of critical thinking and questioning you should demonstrate in your own blog posts...


Sample Blog #1 (courtesy of Kelly Cameron):
In “Long Overdue,” by Naomi Shibab Nye begins and ends her essay with a figure of a gardener, hired to clean up her neglected yard. Because Nye’s essay is about the prejudice faced by people of Arab descent, her decision to use the gardener, who she describes as being “large and blond as a Viking” (99), as a bookend of sorts is a curious one. How does Nye’s inclusion of the gardener function rhetorically? In keeping with Nye’s poetical style, she uses strong images throughout her text, without offering a straightforward explanation of what they mean; the gardener seems to function as one of these images. Of her neglected yard, he says, “Long overdue” (100). His words come to have particular meaning for Nye, who feels that she is “long overdue” in addressing the prejudice she faces as a Palestinian. However, when she closes her essay, she uses the gardener to suggest that sometimes words cannot suffice: “The gardener laid the stones. He cut the trees back. He turned over the soil around the plants so their roots could breathe. He used no language doing it” (102). It is my opinion that the gardener is some kind of metaphor. Nye must use him as an important symbol, as she opens and closes her essay by discussing him. While this may not appear to be a very successful rhetorical device because the reader might have trouble figure out her intention, it does force the reader to keep thinking about what it means and supply his or her own interpretations.

Student Sample Blog (KC):
When reading Henry James’ Turning of the Shrew, I kept questioning the credibility of the governess as a storyteller. Were there really ghosts or was it a figment of her wild imagination? Who is the reader to believe about the ghosts, the two young, devious children as presented through the governess’ eyes or the governess herself who leaves the reader with some feelings of ambiguity concerning her character? Throughout the story, I found myself wavering back and forth between the feeling that the governess was mad and the feeling that she was telling the truth. The part that puzzled me most was the end of the story. The two ways I read the ending were one, that Mile’s heart stopped beating because of the so-called dispossession and the other was that the governess smothered Miles. The last few paragraphs may have revealed some new information that would leave my reaction to the story leaning in a certain direction. The line that disturbs me the most is when the governess asks Miles “Whom do ye mean by he?” Miles replies “Peter Quint- you devil!” Is Mile’s calling Peter Quint a devil or is he just using “you devil” as a term for the governess’ stupidity in failing to see who he was talking about?