Some people believe that technology is to blame for students being illiterate when it comes to writing. John Sutherland mentions, “ Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video, and powerpoint have been replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into bleak, bald, and sad shorthand.” What he means by this is that students these days are not writing in the form they used to or even should be, they write more but not in the correct way. I think he is correct in the sense that even though students and kids are writing more, they are writing and communicating in a newer fashion and technology has helped that in a big way. For example, in the 70’s you couldn’t txt or facebook or twitter, cause you to only be able to write emails. Well now that all of that has changed so has the language around us and Clive Thompson is blaming that in technology. The main ideas in this article are that our language and how we speak through the media is changing because our technology is changing. And I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. Like what Professor Andrea Lunsford said, “ I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.” She means that technology is changing so much she compares it back to when they were just beginning to learn and change languages, and she is completely correct. She also stated that “ technology isn’t killing our ability to write, its reviving it and pushing our literacy in bold new directions” My view of this who conversation is that technology indeed isn’t hurting anything that we are doing in the course of learning or being able to communicate, if anything is changing I think it is changing for the better. If you think back to not even 10 years ago we didn’t have facebook, twitter, or even txting. We only had telephones. So if we didn’t have technology how do you think our world would change? For the worse or better? I defiantly have to assume for the better. From the information I have been reading in the article, “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy” is that the professors that have added their own input think that technology is great thing to have and to continue to learn from and continue using.
All in all I think that this articles expresses the pro’s and con’s of using technology for our language in the media and from person to person and I think it will continue to change.
Welcome!
Welcome to our Eng 100 Blog “Conversations Beyond the Classroom”! The title of this blog refers to the community of active readers & collaborative learners we are creating by sharing our academic writing for Eng 100 with each other + a larger group of students, instructors, academics, and just about anybody who chooses to follow our blog! When you write and post your reader responses here (and, later, as you write your essays for the course), I encourage you to use this audience to conceptualize who you are writing for and, most important, how to communicate your ideas so that this group of academic readers and writers can easily follow your line of thinking. Think about it this way: What do you need to explain and articulate in order for the other bloggers to understand your response to the essays we’ve read in class? What does your audience need to know about those essays and the authors who wrote them? And how can you show your readers, in writing, which ideas you add to these “conversations” that take place in the texts we study?
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
As students of Eng 100, you will use this blog to begin conversations with other academic writers on campus (students and instructors alike). We become active readers of each other’s writing when we comment on posts here. And, best of all, we are using this space to share ideas! We encourage you to use this blog to further think through the topics and writing strategies you will be introduced to this quarter. As always, be sure to give credit to those people whose ideas you borrow for your own thinking and writing (you should do this in the blog by commenting on their post, but you will also be required to cite what you borrow from your peers/instructors if and when it winds up in your essays. More details on that later…).
Finally, keep in mind that writing to and for this audience is a good way to prepare for the panel of readers (faculty at WCC) who will be reading and assessing your writing portfolio at the end of the quarter. We hope that as a large group of active readers, we can better prepare each other for this experience. But, in the meantime, let’s have fun with it! I am really excited see how far we can take this together!
--Mary Hammerbeck, Instructor of Eng 100
You are so smart.
ReplyDeleteyour poste helps me to understand more of my own point of view.
ReplyDeleteI think the quotes you took from the essay were very appropriate. Then you supported those quotes with many good ways to back them up.
ReplyDeleteA+
I agree with what you are saying. Technology is for the better and i like how you argue that this statement is true. You use many facts from the article and discribe the situation well. Also i like how you take their statement of how technology is killing our language and you throw it right back at them.
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