Blogs that you should check out

There are a couple of blogs that I have really enjoyed reading during this project. While I feel that you should read up on as many of these blogs as you can, I feel that there are three in particular that should be at the top of your list.

I always enjoy reading the blog "Marriage: The Sex Is Always the Same." I like this post because of the author's ability to mix humor and serious issues together in a very comfortable laid back style. The title in and of itself is a great representation of the blog. It mirrors the witty humor that the blog is composed of. The author does a good job of making good points, but not in a heaving daunting way; everything seems very self-explanatory and simple.

The blog "Save or Destroy ANWR" is another blog that I enjoy to read. The creator of this blog has done a great job of making herself knowledgeable on the subject matter at hand. Her arguments are always sound and well thought out. She is extremely bright when it comes to her argumentation, which she repeatedly exemplifies in her comment sections. After reading her posts, I always come away feeling like I know something that I did not know prior to reading it. She also does a good job with actual presentation of the blog. It's strong black background juxtaposed to it's picture of Alaska help create the mood that she needs to help bring people to her side of the issue.

I also have enjoyed my time reading the blog "This is why WE hot...global warming." This blog takes an interesting approach to disseminate information about global warming. From the author's title, one can see that the blog is going to be different. The author wittily based the title of her blog on the title of a popular rap song. In most blogs about global warming, you would expect to find a black or other loud background with information to match. In this blog, the author has used a pink background with information to match. One of her goals in creating this blog was to relate her love of fashion to global warming, an approach that I had never seen or heard of before. Through the avenues she goes through to reach her audience, she is able to successfully create an interesting blog that is enjoyable to read.

Self Analysis

Over the course of this project, I have grown as a person, and as a thinker on the subject of closing the achievement gap. At the beginning of this project, I lacked the appropriate passion and fire that I needed to show in this blog with this type of issue. I tried to use more logical arguments rather than the necessary emotionally logical arguments that I tried to construct towards the end of my posting. I was, for lack of a better word, dry. Since this project, my thinking has changed in that now I am consumed with an urge to go out into the world right now and try to solve the problem, where as before, I was more passive to it. Over this period of blogging, not only have I learned new things, I have started to allow the information that I have learned to grow into more complex ideas. I now think for spurting out ideas about ways to solve the problem because I have matured enough to realize that there are always exceptions to every idea and solution.

When I started this project, unlike now, I felt that this problem was insurmountable; however, now I know better. There are special schools called KIPP Schools, Knowledge is Power Program, that are serving low-income minority students, with a college entry rate of nearly 80%. These schools are not without controversy, but regardless of that, they are working. When I first started this project, I though about the growing population of people who said that interracial contact was not important, but as I have grown and researched the issue, I have found lots of evidence that supports the idea that integration is good and necessary. I have found out about blogs like Acting White by James C. Collier that help me to organize my thoughts on the subject, and present new ideas that I had not thought of. I have become aware of the efforts of people, like Bill Cosby, who are trying to help fix the problem.
I have hope and faith that this problem is reversible. There are states in America that have either started to reverse the achievement gap, or are trying to figure out how to. Mike Easley, governor of North Carolina, has created a pre-school program, which is showing gains in closing the achievement gap.
I feel that over the course of my blogging career, I have become better with argumentation. I have tried to use and internalize the art of rhetorical appeals. It is imperative that when discussing an issue, one must be able to sufficiently back up there conclusions in order to aviod logical fallacies. At the beginning, I knew about logical fallacies, but I didn't realize how important it is to avoid them. I have learned that argumentation is helped by sources. From doing this project, I've learned that a lot of websites are not as reliable as others, but the "non reliable" websites also have there uses. As I conclude with the my own analysis, I have come to terms that I am happy with my progress as a thinker on this issue.