Mentor Blog Posts

http://eveningswithdrfutterman.blogspot.com/2011/01/ive-been-feeling-so-strange-lately.html#comments

Time and time again, I feel myself being drawn to reading Annie's blog. She's more than just an amazing writer- every single post has such a specific voice and character to it (not to mention her amazing vocabulary that I can't seem to not mention every time I talk about her blog). I find it really inspiring to see not only the minimum reading entry per week, but also extra creative/independent writing or random thoughts every time I look at her blog. Every aspect of it from her background, to description, to title of blog, to each and every post shines through as "purely Annie". I love, love, love her metaphors and creative expressions, and the picture she chose for her "poem, art response" post. As time goes on, I will continue to look back at "Evenings With Dr.Futterman"often in the hopes that reading her writing, which is so drastically different and overall stronger than mine, will help me grow as a writer, reader, student, and person.

Whoops, I just realized that I forgot to write anything about the actual post that I put a link to. So, I love this post basically because it displays so perfectly what I described before. Annie does a brilliant job of extending her ideas and connecting what she's thinking about in her own life and in the world, to her books and what she's reading.

http://piasela.blogspot.com/2011/01/sense-of-normalcy-and-perfecting-our.html#comments

What I love about this post is how real it is, how everyone can connect to what she's talking about because it's just so true. What I admire most about Pia's blog in general is how beautifully she connects the book she is reading to real life, how she'll start with a pararaph or two to draw you in, get you thinking, and then give some context, tell you how it relates. A lot of the blogs I read are rants about life/things distantly/not-at-all connected to their reading or a very long retell with perhaps a few sentences explaining their thoughts on the book. Plenty of those blog posts are perhaps written well and thoroughly thought out, but somewhat defeat the point of a "reading blog". What I envy so much about Pia's posts is her perfect balance between the two- not too much retell, just enough theorizing and ranting. Her thoughts are always very organized and well thought out-- very obviously not left to the last minute.

http://ferny-nandez.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-time-comes-to-leave-just-walk-away.html

I am in love with not only her poem response, but also the piece of art that she chose for this post. The imagery and story that she creates off of this picture is so lovely and just makes me smile (perhaps partially because Ferny wrote it). I also idolize practically any poem that rhymes in any way, just because I love rhyming. On a broader note, I also really really admire that she has bits of independent/creative/extra writing included in her blog here and there.

I think that having an ELA blog community like this is and has been such an amazing experience that we should all take full advantage of by putting real and true effort into every post we write, and trying hard to go beyond the minimum 1 post per week mold. I realize that I personally haven't been writing much more than is required, which is why I applaud those who have (like Izzy, Annie, Pia) and I definitely want to work harder to do that in the 2nd semester of this year.