Blogs Versus Blahs

In-class Web logs can bring out students' best—and their worst.

If Donald, a freshman at East Side Community High School in New York City, wasn’t actually in a shell, he could’ve easily fit into one. “His body would literally touch his knees—that’s the position he would be in to read a book,” says Sarvenaz Zelkha, his humanities teacher. “He would never speak...