Journals
When I was first thinking (about three years ago) about researching blogs as a student journaling tool, one of my instructors, Dr. Joanne Matson, told me I should track down Toby Fulwiler’s work. As a pioneer in the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) movement, he had done extensive work in the use of “learning journals” in the classroom. Dr. Matson had just returned to the classroom after a decade in administration, and most of her composition theory references were older. I dropped the project then, but now as I find myself picking it up again, I can see why she really didn’t understand why “blogging in the classroom” would be a significant new topic.
Most of what is being said regarding blogs in composition has been said before. Looking at the “Guidelines for Using Journals in School Settings” approved by the NCTE on Commission on Composition on November 28, 1986 drafted by Fulwiler, it seems that the basic assumptions of learning through blogging have been stamped as legitimate:
Students are asked to keep journals for strong pedagogical reasons, based generally on the following assumptions about the connections between thought and language:
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When people articulate connections between new information and what they already know, they learn and understand that new information better (Bruner, 1966).
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When people think and figure things out, they do so in symbol systems commonly called languages, most often verbal, but also mathematical, musical, visual, and so on (Vygotsky, 1962).
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When people learn things, they use all the language modes to do so—reading, writing, speaking and listening: each mode helps people learn in a unique way (Emig, 1977).
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When people write about new information and ideas, in addition to reading, talking, and listening—they learn and understand them better (Britton, 1975).
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When people care about what they write and see connections to their own lives, they both learn and write better (Moffett, 1968).
What seems interesting to me about this paper from 1986 is that it acknowledges the multi-modal nature of learning, and yet it still privileges writing above all else. It strongly privileges the “connections” model of knowledge, and yet it does not grant much provenance for connections to non-linguistic forms, or to social connections between students. Throughout Fulwiler and his colleagues work, there is an uneasy tension between public and private, between focused classroom discussion and the sort of personal connection suggested by their fifth point. The usage of journals suggested at this point in composition’s history is a “forced” model, with neatly segregated categories of discourse. These are the recommended guidelines:
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Explain that journals are neither “diaries” nor “class notebooks,” but borrow features from each: like the diary, journals are written in the first person about issues the writer cares about; like the class notebook, journals are concerned with the content of a particular course.
[Projecting this guideline onto blogs, one might suggest that a classroom blog presents a topical focus—the class itself—written in first person to connect with issues raised by the class. For blog discourse in the larger sense, one might easily argue that the subject of blogging is the Internet itself, pointing to bits of the Internet that have a personal (or professional) connection with the author of that blog.]
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Ask students to buy looseleaf notebooks. This way the students can hand in only that which pertains directly to your class, keeping more intimate entries private.
[The same function might be fulfilled in blogging through the use of categories, and category specific RSS feeds. In this way, professionals keep their (semi)private thoughts separate from their professional or thematic concerns. If feeds are used, this makes it possible to aggregate knowledge work separate from personal narratives of connection which seem to me to be the heart of journaling activity. In this case, a “notebook” is suggested as a common place for reflection, as a fixed site in which to write. I think that the same function is fulfilled by web “sites.”]
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Suggest that students divide their journals into several sections, one for your course, one for another course, one for private entries. When you collect the journal, you need only collect the ones for your own course.
[This really speaks to the need for category support in blogging software in either pedagogical or professional application]
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Ask that students do short journal writes in class; write with them; and share your writing with the class. Since you don’t grade the journals, the fact that you write too gives the assignment more value.
[This relates to my “practice what you preach” rant of a few days ago. But, this is also one of the guidelines that I have most trouble with as a teacher. I hoped to use blogs to extend discussion outside the classroom, freeing up more valuable classroom time to discuss the material of the class rather than having students bury their heads pretending to write in class. Writing exercises inside the classroom seem like lazy teaching to me. I never could produce good writing on cue, and I don’t expect my students too either.]
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Every time you ask students to write in class, do something active and deliberate with what they have written: have volunteers read whole entries aloud; have everyone read one sentence to the whole class; have neighbors share one passage with each other, etc. (in each case students who do not like what they have written should have the right to pass.) Sharing writing like this also gives credibility to a non-graded assignment.
[I have been in classes arranged around this—but what we used was journals produced outside of class, mostly. It was productive, though a bit forced. I prefer the approach used in most of my undergraduate lit courses—we were required to journal on a listserv, and then journal entries were discussed (not read) at the opening of the next class. I think this takes less time and produces better results without cutting into the time spent on the material rather than people’s reactions to it.]
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Count but do not grade student journals. While it’s important not to qualitatively evaluate specific journal entries—for here students must be allowed to take risks—good journals should count in some quantitative way: a certain number of points, a plus added to a grade, as an in-class resource for taking tests.
[I think the emphasis on thematic content (categories, and the desire for relevance) cuts down on the risk-taking in an unacceptable way. This is why I do not like “directing” journaling activities, but in lower-level classes it seems to be an inevitability.]
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Do not write back to every entry; it will burn you out. Instead, skim-read journals and write responses to journals that especially concern you.
[The comment and trackback functionality of blogs really seems to address this problem nicely.]
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At the end of the term ask students to put in (a) page numbers, (b) a title for each entry, (c) a table of contents, and (d) an evaluative conclusion. This synthesizing activity asks journal writers to take these documents seriously and to review what they have written over a whole term of study.
[It is this part of the guidelines that would take the most revision to be applicable to blogging—how does one create “closure” for a writing device that one might hope would continue after the class is done?]
These thinking points are taken from The Journal Book, 1987, edited by Toby Fulwiler.
