In Kari Sommers' excellent analysis of some of the journals written for my spring 2002 Studies in American Literature class, she looks especially closely at student journals on Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Noting rightly the very wide range of opinion, Kari lists several topics that many students discussed: "the issue of feminism and how it related to the novel, the fact that it was a better novel than the previous two, what Edna’s 'awakening' really was and whether it was more than just sexual in nature, and the confusing nature of her relationship with Robert." More generally, she comments that email journaling "allows for a different kind of outlet for students; it allows students who do not get to contribute to the discussion in class (or who do not want to contribute to the discussion in class) to still be able to share their thoughts with their classmates."
I agree with Kari on all of these points. I could add others. Students who have written journals come to class better primed for discussion, and because students distributed their students to the whole class, they also encountered each others' ideas before class. (This class had only a dozen students; in larger classes, dividing students into sub-groups might be necessary for logistical reasons.)
In what follows, however, I want to discuss briefly another benefit of online journals: their use in organizing class discussions. Kari and I did not talk much about what use I made of student journals (which were emailed to me by mid-morning each class day; the course met at 1:00 three days a week). Sometimes I simply read over the journals to get a sense of what students were thinking--they were invaluable as a window into what the class had and had not noticed in their reading, what issues and passages had caught their attention, and what questions or confusions needed addressing. Often I highlighted certain passages, read or paraphrased them in class, and asked students to explain or develop further their ideas.
In the case of The Awakening, the final day's journals were especially rich and provocative. Students had struggled in particular with the issue of Edna Pontellier's suicide, and raised so many intriguing questions and perspectives that I knew I should find some way to organize the class around them. Between the journals, our earlier discussions, and the criticism I had read, I pieced together a one-page handout sketching numerous ways of reading Edna's final gesture. I began class by commenting briefly on how valuable I had found the journals, then distributed the handout.
We began working through the various ways of reading the end of the novel, and what ensued was one of the very best discussions that I can remember in twenty-plus years of college teaching. Students offered summaries of and embroideries upon their own readings of the novel, and engaged each other energetically but respectfully. Given that their various views, and the others represented on the handout, were clearly not assimilable into one single overarching theory, they had to offer evidence and arguments in support of whatever position they favored, and to contend with what others offered in return. I mainly recognized the next speaker, occasionally restated a point or asked a question, periodically moved the discussion on to the next perspective on the list. Virtually all the students participated in substantial ways, and when we had to stop at the end of the period my head was nearly spinning.
I think there are several reasons that this session was so successful. First, the book itself lends itself to such a discussion; its ambiguities and ambivalent resolution invite open-ended speculation. Second, the issues it raises of women's identity and role in the world continue to be relevant, especially perhaps to the women who made up a large majority of the students. Third, and to my mind at least as important as the others, the journal assignment encouraged and enabled students to thnk in speculative terms about the reading, to make at least tentative formulations of their thoughts in writing before class, and to encounter the varying formulations of their classmates as well.
Journals have long been a standard element of many college classes; electronic journals are newer, but have also become an established teaching technique. I continue to experiment with the best formats for handling them effectively and efficiently, and have not had equal success in every class session or every course. But I believe they can be a real aid to learning.
An account of my use of electronic journals in another spring 2002 class is here.