Ideas and Learning from Classmates

In my point of view, blogging is a great way to express ideas about a novel and share ideas about a certain topic with those around you. My positive outlook on blogs has a lot to do with contributing my own ideas with other people. I like the fact that your feelings being expressed about a certain topic are "out in the open", because that way, those around you can give you more ideas and express there feelings about the topic being discussed. During this year, for example, I experienced a lot of learning and new understanding from other peoples' blogs. I hadn't ever noticed before the blogs how much someone's ideas can broaden my own thinking and understanding of something. Even though we didn't get into our groups to have discussions about these books as often as we would’ve liked, I feel that the blogs made up for the group discussions by having everyone's ideas documented as final thoughts, instead of the ideas just being mentioned in the group and being later forgotten.

As a specific example, in Michelle's blog, "Thoughts About Fahrenheit 451", she mentioned something that had never occurred to me. She used a specific part in the book when Montag was in a house burning books. She says, "Montag dropped the book and another one falls into his arms. It is almost like the books want him to read them. I found this interpretation very helpful to me, because it shows how Montag's attitude is changing towards books. Montag wants to question things and ask "why" things are happening. To me, this is just one example of how Montag is changing his life outlook. I do think that Bradbury wanted this part of the book to be analyzed this way; interpreting certain events as a symbol of specific situations.

Another example that had rarely crossed my mind was mentioned by Danielle. In her blog posted on May 25th, she said, "In this novel, the books aren't just books. They're a way to learn about there past which is something the government doesn't want. People in this society don't know whats going on around them because they've been taught not to. The government tries to get ride of any evidence there is of their past by telling them that they will be arrested for reading books and by burning them." This stood out to me and helped me a lot, because I never thought about the government too much while reading this book. This is unusual, because the government has mostly everything to do with why Montag's society is the way it is. Danielle points out in that sentence that the government, in other words, brainwashed the people into not caring about their past. As I was reading the book, my interpretation of the society's situation is that over a large amount of time, gradually, people from the society started to just not care about the past anymore. In my first point of view, I felt that because the peoples' lives were becoming so much advanced, they just lost sight of what was once the world, before they were in the picture. Once I read on through the book, I began to realize that the government did play a major role in leading the people into their certain state of mind.

After we finished our blogging assignments where we were asked to comment on four other peoples' blogs, I came to the conclusion that blogging is only positively beneficial to someone when people read each others ideas stated in their blogs. When you blog, you write down your ideas about a certain topic and tell how you feel about it. None of your ideas will do any good, unless people read and comment on your ideas to help you better understand the topic being discussed. Everyone who is blogging should read, comment, and thoughtfully consider the ideas of others.