More coding

So I have made it through all of the journal responses and have coded what came to mind.  I plan on taking a day or two off and then going back through to make sure I didn't miss anything important.  I continued with the color coding post-it notes for each student.  I also decided to number the responses and write the number in the corner of each post-it note.  See the example below for an example.

I am hoping when I begin triangulating my data (proving why I came to my conclusions), I will be able to easily refer back to my examples.  I am hoping once I begin putting the post-it notes into groups the whole process will make more sense because even after coding I still feel completely lost with what direction I am going.

So far I have focused on topics the students wrote about, and emotional involvement they had with the book.  If I am going to look at reading response journals effects in terms of emotional connection... it is not looking very good.  Green (reading on a 3rd grade level) is the only one who has had several entries with true connections to the text.  I have also seen many illustrations to go along with the entries.  This tells me that illustrations may help the students gather their thoughts?  The story may make more sense to them in simple terms like an illustration.  As I am writing this post, I also thought about the fact that the students were all reading chapter books with few illustrations, therefore, they are able to make mental images of what they are reading.  Hmmm.... I will keep on thinking about other trends I notice.