It’s Wednesday evening around 8 p.m. and I’m beginning to wonder if the assigned students will meet their deadline to post for our class blog (www.landwomenslit.blogspot.com). I have no control over what they post—it can be anything related to our broader topic of gender in the 21st century, including newspaper or magazine articles, YouTube videos, clips from old episodes of “The West Wing,” or the latest in pop culture—and the content is often surprising. The only requirement: designated students must post something of interest related to gender each week, and then class members post a response to at least one of the items. As I click on the class blog, I see the posts roll in.
I laugh and am intrigued. If it had been me, I would have posted an article from The New York Times or perhaps the International Herald Tribune’s excellent site, “The Female Factor.” But they are 17, and I am 51, so their interests are quite different—and absolutely fascinating. Mitchell posts ads from the 1950s on the joys of being a housewife and a love of appliances. Mya posts links and articles about Robin Thicke’s recent music video, “Blurred Lines.” Thomas posts an article on a lesbian candidate in the New York City mayoral race, and Kim posts an animated cartoon about the Powerpuff Girls and gender roles.
Student response to the various blog posts is varied: some posts garner a lot of excitement, others a few cursory responses, but when class begins on Wednesday, students are always ready to talk about them. So, each week I devote part of the time to discussing select posts and give up some traditional academic discussion in exchange. The trade-off is worth it: I observe how effectively this type of student-driven content unites the class community and develops individual student thinking. And I’ve learned more than I ever expected on current gender topics.
I originally started using a class blog as a way to extend a discussion about literature. By posting a discussion question on the blog, I invited students to respond not only to me but also to one another. With this format, the blog allowed students to plan out their answers and build on classmates’ comments. One student, Surya, noted: “In class, you don't have as much time to carefully plan out what you are going to say. That’s good in many ways, and one of the best parts of a discussion-based class."
Kim added: “As a student who has a harder time formulating arguments and ideas on the spot, I have been able to use the blog as a safe space to share my thoughts with the class, without the pressure of 20 eyes watching me. I feel like I get more time to think and respond to my classmates, unlike in class, where I often miss the opportunity to participate because the conversation has shifted.”
As Eleanor Duckworth, the author of The Having of Wonderful Ideas, noted, creating meaningful, student-centered, and real-world experiences deepens and shapes student learning in ways that a teacher-led class does not. She said: “The having of wonderful ideas, which I consider the essence of intellectual development, would depend instead to an overwhelming extent on the occasions for having them. I have dwelt at some length on how important it is to allow children to accept their own ideas and to work them through” (Duckworth 13). Her work reminds me that providing students with a forum to find and explore their own ideas is the best way to help them grow intellectually. She added, “The more ideas about something people already have at their disposal, the more new ideas occur and the more they can coordinate to build up still more complicated schemes” (Duckworth 14). In that spirit, by senior year, my students know enough about books, ideas, and gender to form their own opinions. Using the blog, they make connection after connection between what is happening in popular culture and the news, and texts we are reading such as A Room of One’s Own or The Handmaid’s Tale.