Meta-, it comes from the Greek preposition or prefix "μετά" (meta-) meaning "in the midst of, in common with, by means of, in pursuit or quest of". Today it is defined as"occurring later than or in succession to" or "later or more highly organized or specialized form of". Therefore this post is a post that is a later thought about posting, more specifically the evolution in my blogging. It is a post about the way I have changed as a blogger, which is another definition of meta-, like in metamorphosis.
My blogging life began with a post about a connection I noticed about an amusement park being named Six Flags Great America and patriotism. Although it had little to do with significant happenings in America and I may have read a little too into it, it was very relate-able and understandable. This theme continues in many of my other blogs. While many of my blogs relate to my own life or the lives of fellow students pretty well they seem to have little connection to significant events in American history. One of the best examples of this would be a post entitled "Enjoy it While it Lasts", it begins with a poem I wrote about myself and then it goes on to talk about "a mantra that parents have often drilled into the children of America". The post is very relate-able but it lacks significant connection to a greater event.
Then, little by little my posts begin to include some sort of statistic or video. Unfortunately though, while these statistics and videos are related to some sort of happening or trend in America they are not related to anything specifically significant. However the real problem is that sometimes these videos or statistics are not different enough from the point I try to make that it doesn't make any sort of legitimate connection.
Since the posts that were related to something other than my own life were sparing the change in my blogging nature is very evident. Beginning with the post titled "An American Snowball", my blogging began to address more specific happenings in America and relate those stories to my own life. The change was due to a conference with my teacher, Mr. Bolos, in which he told me about needing to relate my personal life to larger happenings in American history.For example in "An American Snowball", I related Herman Cain's errors to the fundamental attribution error that most Americans have and the difficulty of accepting responsibility for one's actions. These blogs are stronger because of the connection they make between the life of an average American to a event or news story.
Ever since I made a change in my style of blogging, the blogs have been stronger but some of them still went back to the old ways, like a blog I wrote titled,
"Sheep". But, "Sheep" was another milestone in my blogging because of my decision to add questions to the end of my blog in attempts to encourage discussion, another suggestion made by Mr. Bolos. Unfortunately I never really mastered the concept of an open ended question at the end of my blog until my very last post, but with the help of my teacher Mr. O'Connor. However, for the most part the blogs have been getting better and I honestly feel like they will continue to get better. I think this because of the last blog I wrote titled
"Freedom vs. Liberty", which is the strongest of the blogs that I have done this semester. It is the strongest blog because of its analysis of the words freedom and liberty, the connection it makes to class room terminology, the connection it makes to the immigration in America, and the open ended question which allows for further discussion.
In the beginning my blogs struggled to be interesting and connected to American history or happenings however with guidance from my teachers and a different understanding of what blogging really was my posts have gotten better. They aren't superb but now the meet expectations. For a superb blog I think I really must be interested in the topic, as I was while writing "Freedom vs. Liberty", and I must remember that blogging is taking something that interests me and relate it to an American theme and my own life in a unique and interesting way. For the future I think I need to work on finding a way to uniquely connect things and to find topics that I am actually interested in.
