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| Texting a Friend |
Does Digital Media Make Us Bad Writers
"According to Lunsford, the writing we produce is not getting worse. Instead, it is simply adapting to the modern world" (Karp, 2010).
A few years ago I would have disagreed with this statement adamantly. However looking back on this subject now, I'd have to say it was a stagnant belief. I learned a certain set of rules regarding the English language in grade school and that was it. No one taught me in school that language is fluid with the time period or as Lunsford stated above - adaptive. As someone who is in love with the Shakespearian time period it should have occurred to me that language changes over time and just because it does so over my time period here on Earth does not make it wrong. Technology is adapting the way we think, especially when it comes to communication. As our language adapts, our writing and literacy skills will follow.
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| My Flipboard |
"As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books." (Rich, 2008).I have to be honest, just about the whole article shocked me. I'm 37 years old and not adverse to digital literacy at all. It never occurred to me that snippets of literacy online wasn't considered reading to some individuals. My prize books are Animal Farm, The Great Divorce, Shakespeare's Unabridged Works and Memoirs (1874), Jonathan Livingston Seagull, etc… I also love my collection of books on my iPad but sitting still long enough to read a whole book or a series of books is hard to do when the Internet provides a plethora of reading material. I believe discounting snippets of Internet literacy to be a stagnant belief. We are in the digital age and information literally flows from our fingertips. I currently have 7 windows open on my MacBook and every few moments I flip through a couple. I love my Flipboard. I can skip through articles fairly quickly and glancing at the snapshot I just took of my Flipboard makes me want to check out the science article in the bottom left corner. The problem today is that we don't engage teenagers in the material that they want to read. I'm a huge advocate for comic books. They are short, eye catching, and can be read on the Internet. Not only that but you can make your own at Make Beliefs Comix killing 2 birds with one stone - literacy and writing.
Web Evangelist vs Traditional Writing
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| Geoffery Fairchid |
I don't feel that digital media is destroying our children's ability to read and write. I think the problem lies in what we want our students to read and how we are approaching writing. Neither are innovative. I look at the stories my kids are reading (the same one I did, excerpts of old stories) and how they are being tested. I know for a fact that there is some sort of missing link. I don't know if it is failure to read a story and apply concepts that the pre-prepared test the teacher puts no thought into does. I've seen the oddest questions come from stories I know my child and I didn't discuss as we reviewed together.
When it comes to writing my children's teachers use a lot of worksheets to develop grammar skills. I'm not seeing an innovation in teaching. I'm not trying to bash on teaching skills in general at my children's school but there is a missing link. My children use technology at home. They use kindles to read. They use YouTube to learn how to make paper Japanese stars and swans. They use Siri's Text-to-Talk on my iPhone. They are bombarded at home with technology but not at school. There is some sort of missing link and I don't think it is the digital technology that should we should be pointing our finger at. I think we need to find new innovative ways to teach our students to read and write that will intrigue or peek their interest. We also need to start acknowledging what they are reading and writing and applying this to our teaching. OR we can acknowledge that as culture changes, writing is going to change as well. This has been noted in all the readings and the TEDtalk Video as a negative concept which eventually turns into the norm, such as Latin transcending into French (John McWhorter, n.d.).
I also want to point out that I agree heavily with John McWhorter in the TEDtalk Video, "Txting, is killing our language. JK!!!" Writing follows our language. Not vice versa.
"All communication includes the transfer of information from one person to another, and while the transfer of information is only the first step in the process of understanding a complex phenomenon, it is an important first step. Writing is a fairly static form of transfer" (Ferraro and Kathryn C. & Palmer).
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| Intimate Conversation with My Husband |
When I first began texting it was new. I was still use to writing long papers and I felt that my writing should reflect punctuations, proper grammar, etc… How long and laborious that was especially hitting the "2" button three times to type just the letter "C". It didn't take long to understand why texting required short, concise messages with abbreviated wording such as "BTW, LOL, etc…" It took an even shorter time period for those words to turn into "btw, lol, etc…" just because the shift button took more effort than what it was worth. Before I knew it, it was a part of my personal culture as well as the culture I was embedded into.
It interesting to note how the texting world is becoming fluid as it develops into its own language. Obviously it will always be rigid as facial expressions, nonverbal clues, and the human component are absent. It's not as rigid as writing can be but to add the nonverbal clues and engage the other individual texting is quickly developing ways to do this such as adding visual expressions such as "lol" or as John McWhorter explained the term "slash" as a "new information marker"which further gives us evidence to pull texting away from the category of writing and into language.
I recommend the TEDTalk series in general
Citations
Ferraro and Kathryn C. , V., & Palmer, K. C. (n.d.).Differences between oral and written
communication. Retrieved on May 25 from
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/speech/differences.htm
Karp, J. (2010, Jan 26). Does digital media make us bad writers?. Retrieved on May 23, 2014 from
http://spotlight.macfound.org/featured-stories/entry/does-digital-media-make-us-bad-writers
Rich, M. N. K. (2008, July 27). The future of reading literacy debate: Online, r u really reading?.
Retrieved on May 23, 2014 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?
pagewanted=all&_r=0
TEDTalk. (Producer). John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! [Web Video]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
