Students engaging in diversity: blogging to learn the history of jazz

Abstract

This study examined discursive choices made by the instructor of a Black Studies course in constructing what counted as blogging and the history of jazz; how students showed evidence of meeting the course requirements, and how particular students engaged with issues of race and diversity in their blogs. The instructor required blogging to enable an interactional form of learning that supported development of a writing voice, criticality, and thinking in interdisciplinary ways. Students entered the course having different prior experiences and understandings of jazz and the class format allowed students to move from whatever path they were on to embrace the positive nature of diversity in the creation of culture.

Keywords:

• blogging
• diversity
• criticality
• social learning
• ethnography
• discourse analysis