Narrative 2 " Land of equal opportunity" and " Land of difference"

Our group discussed narrative number two “The land of equal opportunity" and "Land of difference” from the article written by Cynthia Selfe called “Lest we think the revolution is a revolution”. In this narrative, Selfe starts off by talking about how it has been said that everyone can use a computer and that there is no discrimination when it comes to using or owning a computer. A story that Americans tell themselves is that in order to have opportunities today,they need to have access to a computer. Selfe directs the reader’s concentration to a few ads that she has come across and examines them very closely and pays particular attention to what the advertisers use in order to sell their computer. In the first ad (figure 7) we see a man with his dog, with a pipe in front of a fire, this ad clearly has a fifties feel to it (303). Selfe talks about the ad and about the fact that when people remember the fifties they think of a time when citizens were optimistic about the future and that they were in high spirits after their success in World War II along with that, it was at this time that Americans overcame so many obstacles and many people today recall this moment as being the peaceful years in the past, a time when things were just peachy. The advertisers rely on Americas knowledge of this myth, and engage on a recreation on this time in order to sell their product; the advertisers are saying that people today need a computer to have the same optimism that Americans had in the fifties to be able to live this peaceful life. Selfe refers to this as” The land of equal opportunity”. In the other ad’s the advertisers also use the fifties theme again relying on the knowledge of what people have of that time in order to sell their product. Selfe states “These ads are what my grandmother would call mighty white” (304). In making this comment Selfe argues that there are no people of color in these ads or poor people, the advertisers do not show unemployed people or single parents or gay or foreign people. They leave a big part of the population out. The advertisers only concentrate on one group. Selfe wants the reader to pay particular attention to what they are not being shown in these ads. She wants the readers to aware of what they do miss out on and the fact that there are no equal opportunities being shown in these advertisements which completely contradicts the fact that computers do not discriminate when why are they only advertising to the white folk. Selfe believes that the reason the advertisers are leaving so many groups of people out is because they only want to sell this product to the privileged few. Selfe believes that the real story lies in the gap of the advertisements and refers to this as “The land of difference”. In order for the computer to not discriminate, we need to include other people in the advertisements and not just the white people.

Cynthia L. Selfe wrote an article called, “Lest we think the revolution is a revolution.” This was about how we turn to technology for all are answers and how that may not always be the right choice. My group read from pages 301-305. In are section of the article we saw how TV and computers still sell there product by using old family structures and the good old keeping with the Joneses technique to make there product seem like a absolute necessity in the American lifestyle. They use mottos like America the land of opportunity. Selfe states, “This landscape, Americans like to believe, is open to everybody male and female, regardless of color, class, or connection. It is, in fact at some level, a romantic re-creation of the American story and the American landscape themselves a narrative of opportunity in an exciting land claimed from the wilderness, founded on the values of hard work and fair play.” What Selfe is trying to say is that this is the story we grow up hear and trusting to be normality. They however are nothing more then myths used to give us sense of were we stand in the world, they are saying we are Americans so we should use this product because it has an American theme that is all that is going on here with the commercials, they are just using what ever works to get the consumer to buy.

Group Summary

My group was assigned pages 309-322. An advertisement of a Nokia monitor was being described. The description was that it was classy, bright picture, and colorful. It could show all sorts of textures with great detail. The advertisement used a woman and marketed it to a lot of women. The ad was saying that you could be classy and elegant with the monitor. The text was telling the reader pretty much how everything has changed in advertising and with life in general. Selfe describes that men are allowed to wear more casual and laid back clothes in a business atmosphere and it hasn't changed for women. She gives a feminist point of view in a way.

Selfe's essay

the section of Selfe's essay that my group was assigned revolves around the central idea that even though our society is trying to move away from gender roles technology is in fact hindering that progression. Selfe explains this by showing us images of women being used as the
"beauty" and the "seductress" which are both traditionally defined roles for women. Selfe also explains that it its not only women who are targeted by these defined roles but men as well. Men are tagged with the labels of biker, nerds and sex maniacs. Selfe is under the impression that it is going to be very hard for our culture to break away from gender roles.

Selfe's Essay - Paragraphs 1-12

Cynthia Selfe’s essay “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution” explores the impact of changing technology on societies, mainly Western. In her opening paragraphs she explains many of the views and hopes people hold for technology. Examining her title: “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution – Images of Technology and the Nature of Change” we can get an idea of where Selfe’s argument is headed. This title calls to our attention the idea that technology has brought us a “revolution,” thought the term revolution would imply a change. Has technology brought our society change that can justifiably be called a revolution?
Selfe explains that most Americans are simultaneously fearful and accepting of the potential change technology can bring (292). She uses English teachers, which she happens to be, as an example of a population which has conflicting feelings (Selfe 292). On one hand, teachers are eager to take advantage of the benefits technology could bring to education, such as accessibility of information. On the other hand, it has required much readjusting and reapportionment of funds (Self 292). Selfe seems to be saying that while technology certainly has the potential to make teacher’s jobs easier, teachers themselves must be willing to leave behind many of their traditional, familiar teaching methods; which for many is no easy task.
Selfe also explains how Americans can easily link technological change with societal change, and with the rate at which technology is advancing it is easy for some to come to the conclusion that our ideals for society have changed as drastically as the speed of our computers (293). These so-called changes both in our technology as well as in our society are also easily linked together because of the progress it signals. Technological advances mean progress, and when we embrace technology we embrace the promise of a better future, or so we all wish to believe (Selfe 293). This embracing of technology is only made easier as we see our leaders modeling their own love for this “progress.” An example of this modeling which Selfe uses is former Vice President Albert Gore, who strongly believed that our “Global Information Infrastructure would increase opportunities for intercultural communication” (Selfe 293). However, Selfe also states that the “optimism about technology often masks…a contrasting set of extremely potent fears” (293). Here Selfe truly begins her discussion of the outside appearance of technology; which is that it will save us from ignorance and discrimination; and the deeper picture; which is that our optimism about technology could actually be distracting us away from the fact that for all our technological progress, we are actually resisting any positive societal changes.
Selfe states that “an exclusive focus on the positive changes associated with technology, often serves to distract educators from recognizing how existing social forces actually work to resist change in connection with technology” (293). Perhaps what Selfe is saying here is that our habits as a society are too deeply rooted to simply be suddenly undone, revealing a utopia of acceptance and equality. Rather, we use our technology to create the illusion that we have reached this peaceful, caring state. Western cultures have access to technology which allows us to think, for even a moment, that we are a part of a bigger picture, that because of technology we are as connected to the rural villager across the globe as we are to our neighbors across the street. Yet, we aren’t. Our windows into their world are one-sided and exploitative, we post images of them and tell their so-called stories for our own gain. We could be using our upper hand to help other, less fortunate countries. However, perhaps the reason we are so unwilling to do this is because we have not yet helped ourselves.

Narrative #3: “The Un-gendered Utopia” and “The Same Old Gender Stuff”

My group did our analysis on page 305-309. Through out the entire section there was one underlying idea that Cynthia Selfe was trying to get across. This was the idea that today we look at technology as creating a society in which gender has no affect on what you are able to do and how you are treated, but in reality technology is just reinforcing old traditional beliefs on gender roles. In each paragraph Selfe uses examples of where in our lives today technology reinforces the traditional roles. Many examples are such that of commercials showing men using and building computers. Others are commercials showing men using computers and TVs and the women and children just watching the man. These examples show that even though the idea is to create a genderless society with technology, even our commercials are reinforcing the previous gender roles, not eliminating them.

In Cynthia Selfe’s essay she states “Men use technology to accomplish things; women benefit from technology to enhance the ease of their lives or to benefit their families” (p. 308). With this statement Selfe is making the conclusion that men have personal and work related uses for technology, where women only use technology to make things easier in their life, or improve the lives of their family. I will readily agree with this statement due to its relevance in my own family’s lives. Using computers as the example in my home, my father uses a laptop for a multitude of things. First being managing his business, second, and consuming probably just as much time or more, is his personal uses. Whether it is watching YouTube videos of motorcycle races or researching our next ride location, it is for personal use. On the contrary, my mother uses her laptop strictly to save her time with her work so that she has more time to complete tasks at home. This shows that in my life technology is used for two different reasons between two different genders. Not only do my parents have different uses for their laptops, but the fact that my father, who had very little reason for a new computer, got one before my mother, who had a lot of reasons why she needed her own computer, also shows the role that gender has in the uses of technology.

Cynthia Selfe Summary

In Cynthia L. Selfe's essay "Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution Images of Technology and the Nature of Change" my group was assigned to summarize right where one of the three major narratives in introduced on page 305 and until right before the last paragraph on page 309. The Narrative she introduced in this section my group was assigned was "The Un-Gendered Utopia" and "The Same Old Gendered Stuff". She is trying to elaborate on the fact that computers are still aiming towards social classes which are mainly men. They are aiming towards men from previous believes and are making that old stereotype that that men are working men and women are suppose to just be house wife's even stronger. She then brings up the face that to live in an Un-Gendered utopia we need to live in a place where women play a bigger role in everyday life. We cant really change this just because of the tradition that we already have in place. She stresses that women only use computers strictly for responsibilities where men use if for personal enjoyment as well as responsibilities. This stereotype was brought up after World War 2 when women were forced to leave the workplace and to become professionals around the house with this technology. She says that men use technology to accomplish things; women benefit from the technology to enhance the ease their lives or to benefit families.

Cynthia Selfe wrote an article called, "Lest we think the Revolution is a Revolution Images of Technology and the Nature of Change". My group and I started reading page 309 second paragraph we kept going till the end. This section was mainly about how our gender decides what role we are perceived as and how technology has affected that. Selfe starts out referring to the fact that women have been cast as the seductress, mother, or the beauty. We used to believe that technology would help us get out of those roles, but it has only accented them. She goes on to speak about how males today have been cast as the business man, nerd, rebel or sex maniacs. The most common being the business man. Technology used to be thought of as an escape, new chances, new future, but it has only made these roles more prevalent in todays society. Selfe used ads from an everyday magazine to back up her points. The people in these ads fell into one of those previous categories. Will these gender roles ever change? I feel to change these roles we need to start with our youth in school. "A good English studies curriculum will educate students robustly and intellectually rather than narrowly or vocationally. It will recognize the importance of educating students to be critically informed technology scholars rather than simply expert technology users."(322) What Selfe is really getting at here is that instead of teaching students how to use technology, really inform them of the whole atmosphere of it. As students, we need to think critically of technology. And become well educated in it as a field.

Reading response 3

Sven Birkerts explains in his essay “The Owl Has Flown,” that reading is losing its value. It is lacking Wisdom, Resonance, and Depth, all of which are the key to good reading. The title “The Owl Has Flown” explains the theme of his essay in that the owl represents Wisdom, Resonance, and Depth, and the fact that it has flown shows that reading lacking those structures.

“We are experiencing in our times a loss of depth---a loss, that is, of the very paradigm of depth. A sense of the deep and natural connectedness of things is a function of vertical consciousness. Its apotheosis is what was once called wisdom. Wisdom: the knowing not of facts but of truths about human nature and the processes of life. But swamped by data, and in thrall to the technologies that manipulate it, we no longer think in these larger and necessarily more imprecise terms,” Birkerts proclaims.

This passage is about Depth and wisdom specifically, and how we are at “a loss” of them. Birkerts talks about “Vertical consciousness”. He says vertical consciousness is, “a sense of the deep and natural connectedness of things.” What Birkerts means by that is, vertical consciousness is when you analyze and truly understand something. So you learn as much as there is to know about a specific thing. Whereas horizontal consciousness is when you know a little bit about a wide variety of things. In these times, there is much more to read than there was back in the day. So, because there was only certain things to read back then, people would re-read things over and over and understand them better each time. However, now that there are so many more books, people read more and don’t go in depth with each one, but rather skim through them. This passage also talks about wisdom. Birkerts states wisdom is “the knowing not of facts but of truths about human nature and the processes of life.” He is saying that wisdom is not knowing facts that are told to you, but it is knowing from experiences that you have during your life. You will learn more from having a bad experience than you will from hearing about a bad experience. When you experience the emotion it really sticks with you and you learn from it. If it is a good feeling, you would learn that you like that feeling and find out how to feel it again. Or if the feeling was bad, you will know not to do whatever it was that caused the bad feeling and figure out how to change it. The way words are placed and chosen is very important. A single word can change the meaning of the whole sentence. Every single word is just as important as the next. Birkerts essay is about how the quality of reading is decreasing nowadays. However, Clive Thompson argues how writing is improving nowadays.

response, the owl has flown

In, “The Own Has Flown” by Sven Birkerts, the author asserts the importance of three intellectual resources that have been all but extinguished by modern culture. The importance of depth, wisdom, and resonance is profound. For, as Birkerts says:

As we now find ourselves at a cultural watershed—as the fundamental process of transmitting information is shifting from mechanical to circuit-driven, from page to screen—it may be time to ask how modifications in our way of reading my impinge upon our mental life. For how we receive information bears vitally on the ways we experience and interpret reality. (Birkerts 30)

He means that our ability to absorb and deeply comprehend knowledge is being suffocated by contemporary society, all the mass media and proliferation of trivial information that stifles our ability to devote time to fully understand every piece of knowledge we consume. This is very important to understanding the rest of the paper because here, Birkerts introduces the antagonism of modern live and later bestows the tools with which to cast its oppression of the mind. This realization of the opposition that every human being faces is very important to understanding the cry for deep thought throughout this paper. Birkerts impresses upon the reader the importance of understanding the threat of extinguishing complete comprehension of knowledge. The importance is simple, Birkerts believes that the hardest enemy to defeat is the invisible one; the threat of contemporary culture is one that people most ignore because it is ingrained in our perception of how the world works, thus, nothing seems out of place to us. Furthermore, because it is so deeply ingrained the psyche of the modern person, it becomes double hard to overcome it. Birkerts challenges the reader to rediscover old methods of thinking and cast off the burden of modern society and apotheosize into enlightenment.

Birkerts’ method of thinking is in complete contrast to one of the other works we have read so far, Clive Thompson’s “New Literacy” which suggests that modern society is elevating contemporary thought to new heights. Thompson argues that the cultural onslaught of the internet and other forms of mass media is allowing the modern man to discover new forms of communication and explore new thought processes such as argumentation and critical analysis. Thompson uses arguments based on the quantity of information that the modern student has access to, the antithesis of the suggestion of Birkerts. “The Owl Has Flown” definitely successfully contradicts Thompson’s arguments by convincingly explaining the process by which knowledge is absorbed, processed, and used to comprehend the world. The processes described in “The Owl Has Flown” are too complex for many people in this modern world. If one were to apply the intellectual approach of reading to Thompson’s methodology of academic advancement, the result would be a complete overload of information. Therefore, the conclusion can be reached that, if applied properly to the correct information, Birkerts’ thoughts can be used to acquire great depth, wisdom, and resonance.

In class essay #1

Luke Buehrer
In Class Essay #1
Question #1

In the past decade technology has evolved and progressed more than ever before. With this new technology there has been new ways of communicating and simply doing every day life. The internet, it has changed almost every way we go about life, but now the question arises, “Is this new technology killing literacy.”
In the article “The New Literacy” by Clive Thompson, this question is pondered. As John Sutherland says, “Power point has replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into “bleak, bald, sad shorthand.”” But Andrea Lunsford thinks the contrary. She simply suggests that instead of destroying literacy, technology is merely changing it. One interesting thing Lunsford found was that the new generating is writing far more than the previous, because of the internet. All the on-line chat rooms and twitter up dates has encouraged kids to write, not only write, but sharing there opinions and enjoying it as well. She argues that the “New literacy” has taken literacy back to the Greek tradition of argument. And that writers today have to write to an audience, which makes them change their tone and technique in order to get there point across.
I personally don’t see it as black and white as Lunsford or Sutherland makes it seem. I think that the progression of technology has not only been a good thing but an awful thing as well. The way it is good is that it persuades kids and adults to write a lot. And the more you write the better you become. All these chat rooms allow people to get there ideas and belief much further than previously possible. This can lead to a boost in confidence and personal identity. And as Lunsford sees it, it has brought us back to the time of argument and thought. With this access to an easy audience people get to write on there passions and beliefs sometimes writing pages and pages on their own will. A decade ago, the only time you ever wrote so much was when you had a school assignment. Full of anxiety, you would just make up something that almost always you had no passion in. Writing with the internet seems like a hobby now not a chore.
There are also many ways technology has damaged literacy. It is hard not to agree with Sutherland at times when you log on to some site and all you see is self centered comments that have no deep thought process or self identity weaved in the text. Some times all you see is comments on some celebrity and “how I want to have her hair” or some shallow thing like that. With chat rooms it is also possible to loss your identity, (contrary to what I said before) wanting to fit in with the masses, people will go along with what ever idea seem to be the most popular, stuffing there beliefs and opinions aside. It is no secret that web sites like Face Book and My Space have many followers that are addicted to them. Some teenagers’ even adults will stare at the monitor for hours on end. You think the more you practice the better you become, but really, is that much good for you? Some people see Face Book and My Space as their social life. Theoretically, if you never saw a person face to face in you life, but had five hundred friends online would you still count that as a social life? I think that this technology is great (admittedly, I never use is) but there has to be a limit to how much people use it.
Like I said, technology is good and bad, helping and hurting literacy. It is pushing literacy in new exciting paths, bringing us back to the age of argument and intellect. But at the same time it is killing self identity, encouraging bleak, superficial conversations. Taking people away from reality, and replacing it with Face Book. In the end it is a great tool with limitless possibilities, but moderation is the key.

Reading Response--The Owl Has Flown

Take It Easy (Love Nothing)

Sven Birkerts exclaims in his essay, “The Owl Has Flown,” that reading is not recognizable to what it once was. Because of our pace of life, the soul of reading has been overtaken by the busyness of modern life. Birkerts considers the shift from vertical reading (intensive reading that becomes ‘impressed on one’s consciousness’) to horizontal reading (extensive reading as a fast preview with more focus on the ‘what’s next’) too wide of a gap to bridge. He believes depth is lost with intensive reading and that technology is a culprit behind it.

“Wisdom: the knowing not of facts but of truths about human nature and the processes of life. But swamped by data, and in thrall of the technologies that manipulate it, we no longer think in these larger and necessarily more imprecise terms….Indeed, we tend to act embarrassed around those once-freighted terms—truth, meaning, soul, destiny…We suspect the people who use such words of being soft and nostalgic. We prefer the deflating one-liner that reassures us that nothing need be taken that seriously; we inhale the atmosphere of irony.”

Birkerts is saying that wisdom is a deeper look into the words we read. Wisdom is what is gained from intensive reading. However technology brings more precise definites to the table. Wisdom is ruled out by solid, cold facts. The present reality of words like truth, meaning, soul, and destiny once used to find comfort and restore peace are weighted by new horizontal terms, giving it only the remembrance of yesteryear. In the modern view of old concepts, we are able to brush ‘someone else’s’ ideas away to create our own, making our own truth and meaning as shallow as we want. Regardless of true wisdom, which is seeing truth behind facts, we are settling for facts with the supportive source of technology.

The idea of wisdom in Birkerts’ essay sets a solid reference point for the rest of his ideas to funnel down. From wisdom he is able to connect resonance and resonance to deep time which is the single fiber of his point. Reading has become so manufactured to be a brief fix in our society, it turns into another thing measured by time, not allowing the art and capacity of the words to fill our minds. Depth becomes the only survivor because it doesn’t exist in the same realm as time. It is important to understand that wisdom is seen as a thing of the past, but also that its return would be the key to resurrect vertical engagement. Not taking fact as truth, but relating the immediate (facts) to something larger is what Birkerts suggests, to find one’s soul.

Birkerts dissection of the need for restoration in modern reading challenges the ideas put in place by Clive Thompson’s, “The New Literacy.” Thompson claims that the shift in language and writing is fueled by technology and implementing a new form of literacy—a horizontal type of writing for extensive reading. Birkerts would suggest that technologies like Twitter which allows short, curt updates on any desirable thing to be seen and then disposed of does nothing for enhancing wisdom. Thompson believes the opposite, that the opportunities technology provides enhances creativity and writing skills in today’s literate society.

Clive Thompson on the New Literacy

Clive Thompson makes a bold assumption, in an article titled “The New Literacy” that was published in Wired Magazine. In one short paragraph he informs us of the experts, opinions of today’s students and their lack of ability to write a decent sentence let alone an essay. Who or what we ask is to blame for this downward spiral in today’s educated youth? Thompson claims that the experts, place the blame on today's technology. facebook, texting, video, power point all encourage shortcuts. Real writing isn't known to today's students. Although, for one reason or another, they, “the pundits.”(Thompson) who are so called experts would place the entire blame on technology is beyond me. In my option we send our children to school to learn the art of writing. If it takes gadgets such as twitter and text messaging to get the attention and involvement of our young then maybe it’s time to rethink the way we teach. Our ways of teaching have not kept up with technology and are still boring and out of date. Even so the kids of today have managed to do both it seems for Thompson has done some research on the subject and found studies that say otherwise. One of them was a very large project with vast amounts of information gathered, titled the Sanford Study of Writing. It studied everything from students in class writing assignments and formal essays to blog posts and e-mail text messages. Thompson has said that the conclusions found by Andrea Lunsford, the professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford was stunning.
Thompson states that in the study it was found that young people today prefer to use technology as a way of socializing, by the use of face book, texting one another, e-mailing, twittering or one of many options available. In doing so today's youth spends thirty eight percent of their day out of the classroom doing some kind of writing that they normally would not do. But the Lunsford team also asked them selves if this was a good thing on a professional level. What the team found was that on a technical level students were exceptionally apt at knowing who their audience was, and had a knack at being able to relate to them. "The fact that students almost always write for an audience (something virtually no one in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing." (Andrea Lunsford)
The study also showed that students had no problem writing in class and did not carry texting tendencies into their projects. Added to the positives is the fact that the students of today seem better able to express themselves and work together as team because of the connection young people today can achieve with the advantages of today’s ease of being able to keep in instant touch with each other not only as individuals but also as groups. I have noticed personally that today’s students are also able to type on the keyboard with impressive speed and accuracy not from taking a class but from first hand experience.

What can be concluded from the article is that while technology may seem on the outside to be just a social gathering spot, to those who only use it for business reasons. It can also be a teaching tool for today’s youth. One that can be a valuable asset to them in the future, technology today, is not going to be what technology is tomorrow. Because for today’s youth it is imperative that they keep up with all that is available to them.

" A Vison of Studnets Today"

After watching a video, you would think that college students have really serious problem in class. Many people assume that college students couldn’t get good educations in there. This is because they showed us they did not take good education systems. For example, their teacher did not remember students’ name. It makes bad cause for them because their motivations are getting down. When the students’ gets good grade in class, they want to know teacher’s evolutions, but if teacher did not remember the students’ name, they might sad or depressing.

A Vision of Students Today

In a world today, most people believe “that technology can save us.” Some believe “that technology alone can save us.”
In Michael Wesch’s video “A Vision of Students Today,” it starts out by showing a typical, empty college class room with a chalkboard in the front with rows and rows of empty desks. Desks and walls marked by students writing. The journey begins in the back of the classroom on the walls and the desks with writing saying “If the walls could talk… what would they say?” and work its way down the aisle and finally to the chalkboard. All the information that is giving to a class starts in the front; from the professor to the students from talking or by writing it on the chalkboard. But walls and desks can’t talk.
The classroom is now filled with students and they each hold a sign or their laptop saying what an average college students goes through with classes and how they use technology. College students spend so much money on classes, books, laptops (if they can afford it) and other things, but some don’t show up, others barely use their books and use their laptops not for class work. Some of the signs read how many hours spent reading, studying, eating, talking on the phone and other activities throughout the day, the total average of hours spent doing things is of course over twenty-four hours. Students multitask. They have to.
All the money spent, what are they getting out of the class if they aren’t really paying attention? One student’s laptop cost more than most people make in a year. Another student says that they will be $20,000 in debt after graduating.
What is technology really doing for this generation? Is it really helping or hurting us? Technology is being use more for communicating then it really is for learning. We should learn how to use technology to fir in with the youth today to get them more interested in learning.

a vision of students today

The video “A Vision of Students Today” proposes some issues of how technology can interfere or help with the learning processes of students. At the beginning of the video it shows a quote from Marshall McLuhan which says that there is little information that the students can learn from and that the information is ordered and scheduled when it is to be given. The video shows the traditional way of teaching but also introduces technology in which students spend there time on either for school or pleasure and some of its issues such as abusing technology for pleasure instead of using it to gain more information than the limited information given in the classroom.

A Vision of Student Today


Many people today seem to think that there is a huge breach between traditional learning by in class lectures over against the huge wave of technology that the new generation has grown up with. This technology is a huge part of the life of this generation. Micheal Wesch in his video, “A Vision of Students Today” seems to suggest that student appear to be losing their motivation to learn because they can’t relate to the material that is being taught in school. They are use to getting all there information online, so when they enter a class room they are not use to, or familiar with receiving the info the way the professor is giving it. When people can’t relate to the material, or they can’t see the relativity of what they are learning to what their goals are; it can be discouraging. What Wesch seems to suggest but does not come right out and say, is that, teachers, may want to consider using the technology to help student relate to there learning, it could enhance learning it in a whole new way.

Matt

A Vision of Students Today

Conventional wisdom has it that the best way to be successful in life is to go to college. Within this video “A Vision of Students Today” by Michael Wesch this statement is questioned and put up in the air for debate. We are given facts that seemingly illustrate how education is going astray. Emphasis is put on how much school costs us and at the same time how it isn’t useful in most people’s life after college. One woman was shown holding a sign saying “when I graduate I will probably have a job that doesn’t exist today”. This attacks the relevance of classes today and how they relate to actual society. Also many kids are shown saying things such as “This laptop costs more than some people make in a year” or “after I graduate I will be $20,000 in debt”. The cost for education is getting ridiculous and Wesch is attempting to show it in his video. Overall I take this as an attack directed at the board of education saying we need to totally revamp our educational system. Students are not getting what they need out of college and are in some cases worse off after graduation than they were before.

A Vision of Students Today

In Mike Wesch’s video “A Vision of Students Today” he gives his audience an example of what is, probably, an average classroom. Wesch is a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, where he incorporates technology into much of his teaching. The video begins by showing phrases written on surfaces around the classroom, such as “If these walls could talk…” and “Of course, walls and desks can’t talk, but students can.” The video then shows the classroom full of students, many in turn holding up a piece of paper, or showing their laptop screens which say different things about student life, or opinions.
This video by Wesch and his students shows the feelings that many students today are feeling. For example, they address their financial difficulties, their classroom boredom, and the fact that most of their classroom experiences are impersonal and irrelevant to their lives. However, they also acknowledge that they’re the lucky ones, and that over a billion of people are making less than a dollar a day, or how one student’s laptop costs more than what one person may make in a year. Several students say how much time they spend on any one activity each day, activities which the typical student would do. Total time was 26.5 hours. This reminds the audience that students today are multi-taskers, they are much different than previous generations of students, yet education has only changed minutely.
This video calls to many peoples attention, are students today getting the most out of their educational experience?

A Vision of Students Today

Connor Williams
English 100k
Video Summary


In Michael Wesch’s video “A Vision of Students Today” there is a class room full of college students holding up paper signs or their laptops with stats about what goes into a student’s life. Whether it is the mere 26% of assignments that apply to individual’s lives, or the 26.5 hours of things complete each day. Michael Wesch is targeting today’s universities and teacher to make a point about how much today’s students are really doing. Student’s may spend hundreds of dollars on text books required for classes, and never even open them. In the world today, according to Wesch’s video, there are over 1 billion people who make less that one dollar a day. The cost a single laptop in the US costs more than those people make in a year. Many of these things are only traditional in the school setting, but today do not provide any advantage like they use to. There is no reason to buy text books today when we can look up every page online for free. Not only do we spend hours a day doing the work, paying for books, computers and coming out the other end $200,000 in debt and nothing but a piece of paper that says we are qualified for a job we don’t have and spent five years studying to get

Summary a vision of students today's life

Chad Pleadwell
Eng 100k
1/25/10
Mary Hammerbeck

Michael Wesch’s video “A vision of Students Today” life

In Michael wesch’s video “A vision of Students Today”, there is pretty much a classroom full of students who express how much time goes into what they do each day. A student admitted that half of the text she reads applies to what she is going to end up doing in life. Students do spend lots of time reading things that may not be useful in life. Another student held up a sign saying that they are going to be 20,000 dollars in debt. It’s just crazy how much money that we spend on our education in one day hoping of having a degree. The big factor is that we get a degree and we aren’t guaranteed a job in the real world. I find that kind of worrisome because we are here trying to get a degree and take action for our lives yet we don’t have a “for sure” job in the end. Today’s generation is under a lot of stress with the economy and school.

Michael Wesch's video "A Vision of Students Today"

Michael Wesch is an Anthropology professor at Kansas State University who, along with his students, constucted a video called "A Vision of Students Today." The video shows the many different problems with students and the way they learn and gain their knowledge in today's world. Wesch and his students believe that technology is saving us and our future children who are learning in classrooms and the difficult issues that involve sociaties around the world that are affecting different nations like; war, dissease, poverty, hunger, ethnic conflict. Many people assume that learning in college universities from teachers and professors are helping our student learn life issues, but from this video they say that "only 26% of their learning is relevant to their life." meaning that students are not paying attention in their classrooms they are getting most of their information from technology like television, internet, and chating cites like facebook. They are basically wasting there time and money in class and doing self learning which is getting them to multi-task where Wesch video says that students spend 26.5 hours a day doing thing.

Michael Wesch's "A Vision of Students Today" is bringing up the issue of how education today is becoming less and less relevant and out dated. The traditional styles of learning don't really apply anymore yet we continue to let them roll on unquestioned. This is shown in the video by students describing how they spend their time in and out of class. The major use of technology in the classroom was being used to communicate on sites like Facebook, Twitter and myspace. The only explanation for this is that the method of teaching can no longer hold the attention of the students. This directly leads into the next problem with standard education a student holds up a sign that reads " I will be $20,000 in debt after graduation!" If we are paying so much for education why is the system not changing to meet our needs?after all we are paying for it it would be like buying a TV that doesn't work wouldn't you expect the business ( the school) to replace or refund the product ( the education) that you purchased

Vision of Students Today

In the Youtube.com video, "Vision of Students Today", goes through a series of sequences of where students writing and their life is drawn out based on what happens to a college student at a major university. School is expensive and students already are in debt at an average of $20,000 according to one of the points drawn in the video. Students are being overworked by the studies in their class and are unable to see a way out of it such as debt and their social life. "There are 24 hours in a day and 26.5 hours are on an average student's day in college." Students are being pushed to pick a major that may not have a physical career yet.

A Vision of Students Today

In "A Vision of Students Today", teacher Michael Wesch and his students from Kansas State University explore the topic of technology and its role in the classroom. Taking place in an average lecture hall full of students, they each hold up a paper, or flash to a screen on a laptop of a fact about college life, and technology. Many people presume that the technology is what is leading to the decline in education, but Wesch hints that it may possibly be due to the way we use that technology in the classroom. This disconnect from how we learn naturally in the real world and the teachings of professors in lecture halls leads each side to somehow be in a match against the other. Does it really have to be technology or conventional teachings? Or is there a happy medium that can be achieved through a merging of this ever expanding technology and teaching? Wesch seems to believe that both need reform in a way that can combine the two into a cohesive teaching tool that allows better learning for students and a bridge between teachers and students. The extreme between him writing on a blackboard, and students facebooking on thier Mac suggests that the teaching styles have stayed the same and learning styles have evolved over the years.

"A Vision Of Students Today"

With the help of his students Micheal Wesh put together a video to help start the thinking process of how much the classroom has changed and how much it still needs to. This video "A Vision Of Students Today" show it's viewers how many of the students are actually known by their professors. The classroom sizes are so big that it is nearly impossable for a teacher to have any type of interaction with the students as the lecture is being given. Most students are using laptops to communicate with friends rather than take notes on the information being presented. This video also goes further into the lives of the students and how spend the hours of their days, most students are having to multi-task in order to get what is required of them done in one day and take care of themselves. College students spend lots of money every year just to attend college and that is not including the money that is spent on text books that are never used, only to end up in debt by the time of graduation.

A Vision Of Students Today

In Michael Wesch's video "A Vision of Students Today" he brings up the point that the chalkboard was the greatest invention that has been invented. He has brought all of his students together to make a short film on how we as students tend to use the technology that we have been given. The camera slowly moves around the room as students hold up pieces of paper or have something typed out on their laptops saying facts. A student holds up a piece of paper saying that only eighteen percent of her professors know her name. Students now a days have to be multi taskers one of the papers says and I could not agree with this anymore. We have so many things that we have to do and so many expections to become great thinkers and writtings that we are normally spending our time overloaded with homework. One of the facts that hit hardest to me was how much students spend looking at facebook and or email and surfing the web in class when they should be doing something related to that specific class. Wesch's students bring up the fact that they will be over twenty thousand dollars in debt when they graduate from college. If we spend so much time on the internet and doing things that arent class related why do we go to class and go to college? The question I pose is why would you want to go to that big university when the teachers dont recognize you and when you spend most of your time doing something that isnt even class related. Why spend so much money on something we may not even good a very good education out of?

Summary on in-class video

In the video, "A Vision of Students Today", it goes through a series of different short sentences written by the students explaining things about their educational lives. It's showing how college is extremely expensive and how students are getting distracted by other things during class. However, they say in one part, that even though class is so highly priced and that most people end up in debt after college, people still pay for it and that the things we have are more expensive than some people make in a year. Our society is very reliant upon technology and it appears to me that if classes were more focused on involving the technology into the lessons that students would be more compelled to pay attention and immerse themselves into the actual lessons. Rather than using Facebook as a means of escaping boredom.

Welsh

Micheal Welsh created a video with some of his students showing how technology has effected the way are generation studies in school.He shows the amount of time that goes into things like facebook, texting, and email, showing how there is this major gap between students and teachers. In the video you see a giant lecture hall filled with students. The students each take turns holding up notes that talk about how technology has effected there life, and how in school the things you learn in the class room are not always relevant to your average day.

Summary on the new literacy

Chad Pleadwell

Eng 100 k

Mary Hammerbeck

January 24, 2010

Words : 500

Summary on the New Literacy

In Clive Thompson’s article “the New Literacy”, he suggests that today’s youth is so depended on technology such as facebook, blogging, and PowerPoint; that it’s diminishing the way kids write today. On the other hand Professor Andrea Lundsford at Stanford University thinks otherwise. She claims that we are in “a literacy revolution”. By this meaning that today’s generation spends more time writing then any before. Part of the reason why is that we have so much technology at our dispense. If kids weren’t constantly chatting online or texting today’s youth wouldn’t be so in depth with their writing.

She goes on to say that technology isn’t destroying our writing but bring it back to life. With all of the new technology we are constantly pushing our writing in all new directions. She found that more than thirty eight percent of kids took writing outside of the classroom. She also explains that if the internet didn’t come along that most of today’s youth wouldn’t be spending their time writing anything, ever, if it was an assignment. After these kids would get out of school virtually they would never write a sentence or paragraph ever again.

The way that we write today is being that we always are directing it towards someone. Virtually we always have an audience. Always having an audience is great because it gives us a different sense in whom we are writing to. She found that her students were less excited about an in class assignment because it had no audience, but the teacher. The composition didn’t serve them any meaning but a letter grade. Today the students want something more beyond that letter grade. Having an assignment directed to someone other than the professor would be ideal. When it’s addressed to someone informally it’s more interesting. Students today I feel get a better sense when things are more relaxed to whom they are writing to. When writing to a friend, you get a sense of comfort ability.

We know that today we have to sometimes be formal and up front with our professors. The way that the media and technology are pushing writing on youth is simply amazing. Kids are having fun posting updates and chatting online. We are constantly developing in a sense a haiku- a short form of poetry. The plus side of writing today knows who it’s going to and what it’s for. Knowing who we write to plays an important factor through our education and careers.

summary on new literacy

In his recent work in a Wired Magazine’s article “Clive Thompson on New Literacy” Clive Thompson suggests that we are in midst of a literacy revolution and knowing who you are writing and what you are writing for is the main principle of a good writing. In this article he says how usually in the beginning of a school year we hear complaining that kids today can’t write because of technology. It encourages “narcissistic blabbering”, replaced carefully laid out essays and that texting short forms has defiled academic writing. But this project lead by a professor at Stanford University confirms the opposite. They collected over 14,000 samples of students’ writings of in class assignments, journal entries, essays, blog posts, and chat threads and the got some compelling results.
Fist thing they found was that this young generation writes far more than any other generation and that’s because so much socializing is done through computers and it requires writing. Thirty-eight percent of the writing samples were “life writing” or writing that took place outside of class. Thompson explains how his generation ( before the internet was available) most would never write anything that wasn’t school related. The team doing this project found that after the big bang in technology students learned really fast and well how to asses their audience and in what tone to get their message across. All the online writing is conversational and public making the students adapt to addressing different groups of audience in expert ways and gives them a “different sense of what constitutes good writing”. Writing has became more or less part of their daily lifestyle. Although Thompson does not say so directly, he apparently assumes that technology is the main reason for this literacy revolution and that technology can make anyone an expert in writing.
My own view is that technology does not make this young generation good writers. Though I concede that technology has helped the writers to expend their boundaries it did not make them experts in writing. Technology is a tool that can give them the ability to reach the different audiences and they do this regularly than this practice and experience makes them better in writing. Technology is a tool for those people that have a talent in writing to continue to grow. Before such opportunities were not available so the talented writers didn’t have much ways of showing or expressing their talent through. For example an artist that thinks in colors, feelings, pictures and only a few words would not be able to write really well constructed paper, but if you give the artist a canvas the artist will transfer those thoughts onto the canvas. Same goes for writers except that they probably have more colorful words jumping in their brains then a mixture of colors, pictures and sounds. The only difference is that they didn’t have the “canvas” to spill out their thoughts on. Of course they had journals and newspapers and papers to write on but technology gave them another type of canvas that now gives them the ability to expand their writing abilities like they couldn’t before.

reading resp. #3

I think Birkert’s project in “The Owl Has Flown” is Birkert reaching out to everyone and letting society know what he believes is happening with knowledge, wisdom, and the understanding of text and how it operates. Birkert backs his theory up with very convincing facts known throughout the past. A quote I chose was, “we know from historians, for example, that before seventh century there were few who read silently (writing some centuries before, Saint Augustine professed astonishment that Saint Ambrose read without moving his lips); that in Europe in the late Middle Ages and after, designated readers often entertained or edified groups at social or work-related gatherings. I think what he is trying to convince readers to believe is not to harshly persuade someone into following in agreement with him but to make readers choose on their own in what they think and share those personal opinions with each other. Here is my paraphrase that I think exemplifies what Birkert wants you to think about when you read his text.
How are we to obtain both the rights and wrongs of so many different media we come across and what is the “right” material in both horizontal and vertical awareness? A townsman knows all the ins and outs of his town but not of great cities in foreign lands. I mean news of a really old earthquake in Lisbon took months to travel across Europe, and I have no clue where that is but it sounds far.
This passage appears on page 31 about half way through the essay when he gives what I think is a great example. This passage lets me sort of realize how information like the news way back when news traveled from man to man. This example introduces a new view for readers to see things and helped me understand this essay more clearly. This essay I think is related to what we were talking about in class when we read and watched Qualman and Thompsons work. How they both talk about changes in history whether it was way in the past or scarily close, how both are amplifying that the change is constant and will further continue. And also how we were are and continue to be an advancing interconnected network of man and machine.

New Literacy

Clive Thompson's article, "on the New Literacy", was mainly about how technology has impacted academic writing. We have heard for years that due to email and texting our writing has turned into hacked up sentences full of acronyms and abbreviasions. Some disagree. Has technology helped our academic writing, or has it hurt our grammar? Thompson introduces Andrea Lundsford who is a writing professor from Stanford University. She conducted a stude of the years 2001-2006. She gatheres 14,672 writing samples and tested them to see if our writing skills did decrease. Ultimately she found out that our writing skills haven't gotten worse, they in fact have improved. Lunsford came to the conclusion that it's because we socialize so much more through text. We are constanly practicing our writing. It is known that our generation today writes more than any other generation before us. We are always logged on to our web pages gossiping to our friends, filling our survey afer survey, and our generation sends text messages all day long. This in time adds up to a lot of text we don't realize we write or practice. Without the internet or cell phones what writing does take place today? Our generation doesn't hand write anything these days. Is this bad? Thompson goes on to point our the reason why it hasn't affected our writing is because students now days are writing for an audience; whether it be our professor for our homework, or saying something sly about your friends new Facebook pictures. We keep in mind who will read our work. It's something we have adapted to as students. While Lunsford was researching her work, she looked over academic papers looking for examples of short hand in academic writing due to texting, but she didnt find any. It looks like our generation is very aware of what kind of audience we need to write to and how to come across academic when needed. This came as a surprise to me. i was sure that short hand would be more apparent in our writing because of texting, but in the end it didn't. Lunsford goes on to state, "I think we are in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," what she is saying here is that our writing is evolving. Continuosly getting better in short periods of time, something that we have seen since Greek civilization. I have to agree with Lunsford. Technology isn't hurting our writing, its helping. It allows us to practice our skills everyday rather than when your sitting in a classroom learning about it.

New Literacy.

In Clive Thompson’s essay “New Literacy” he begins by stating that peoples view point today is that due to the mass amount of technology in our every day life we are becoming more and more illiterate. Thompson references John Sutherland, University College of London; with his statement that today technology is pushing for short hand with the use of power points, texting and online chatting. But Andrea Lunsford is doing a study of students at Stanford University on the types, amount and effects of all the writing students are doing. Lunsford found that 38% of student’s total writing is “life” writing, such as things like texting and online chatting. But she also found that the short hand and improper writing techniques in life writing never transfers into more formal work such as academic writing. So what does this all mean? According to Thompson today’s writers are becoming experts of addressing their audience. This means whether students are texting, applying for a job, or turning in an English essay, they are able to address the specific audience of each writing and adapt the style and language to that specific writer. Thompson also brings to head the topic of collaborate working. Traditionally working with others and using sources with out a specific author has been considering plagiarizing. But with this study Thompson begins to draw the conclusion that writers of today do much better, and tend to, work together, whether it is in groups or online. This brings up a point of what is more important, the ability to produce a product, or the idea of plagiarism in its traditional sense.
Being a student myself I readily agree with Thompson in the sense that we are not becoming illiterate, but as Lunsford said “I think we are in the midst of a literacy revolution…” Lunsford’s point in this statement is the fact that today’s generation is writing more every day then any previous generation and it is all due to the new technology. In my life I send and receive 14,000 texts a month, that’s roughly 466 text messages a day. With just my texting alone I write more now than I did even two years ago, let alone the idea of people before the instant messaging on the internet or any form of technological socializing.
Although I send hundreds of texts with abbreviated words and sentences, status updates on line and many other types of writing that do not require proper writing, my ability to write a proper paper still improves. As Thompson concluded, we as the new generation are constantly improving our ability to address our audience. We know when it is appropriate to use a certain style of writing and language and when to use a different style. In my own life I have found this to prove it’s self as more than an accurate statement. In some aspects the ability to write in such a way that the teacher is asking has given me more trouble than if I did not know what the teacher was looking for. The ability to tell the teacher what they want has allowed me to not even background work before writing papers because of the ability to display what I know in a way that it will appear that I know what I am talking about.
Thompson, with the aid of Andrea Lunsford, are very accurate in their conclusions that we are now in the middle of a revolution now a collapse. Students are improving their writing every day and technology is to thank, not blame.

Clive Thompson on the New Literacy

In in the essay “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy,” Clive Thompson starts by saying how technology today, negatively effects kids and that they can’t write. Everything now a days are written short hand, straight to the point and with visual aids. Writing correctly and formally isn’t much of an issue. Technology has taken away writing from this generation. But actually, Thompson isn’t really agreeing with that fact. Andrea Lunsford, a professor at Stanford University, created a project where she analyzed different writing samples of 14,672 students over a period of five years. What she found was that, “…technology isn’t killing out ability to write. It’s reviving it…” It’s not that this generation isn’t writing much. In this day in age, the youth is writing more than any other generation. Before the internet was accessible, many people never write unless they were required to do so for a job. Other than that, the writing stopped when they got out of school. Now, the writing is being done online since most of young peoples socializing is over email or Facebook. In fact, Lunsford found out that 38% of Stanford students writing took place outside of class. Thompson states, “The fact that students today almost always write for an audience (sometimes virtually no on in my generation did) gives them a different sense of what constitutes good writing.” They want to get their ideas and points across for others to read- know what their point of view is. “…writing is about persuading and organizing and debating…” We want their audience to see why we are right or why we think that way and why they should agree. Or at least just to argue with another person about the topic. Of course, it’s not as fun to write an essay where just the administer is reading the work and the purpose of the essay is to receive a grade. The Stanford students weren’t as thrilled to write those and same goes with most students. I know I’m not when I have to write an essay for class. Why are people blaming technology for the youths writing skills? Do you see shorthand, texting lingo in academic essays? Lunsford didn’t when she analyzed a paper by a first-year student. Sure, when texting a buddy or updating the our status, we aren’t going to write a complete sentence with correct grammar and spelling. But now the technology has grown even wider today, allowing anything to be posted, the writing might become more locked and tight when it comes to posting show recaps, walkthroughs for games and in depth, meaningful blogs. Thompson ends his essay with a strong passage, “We think of writing as either good or bad. What today’s young people know is that knowing who you’re writing for and why you’re writing might be the most crucial factor of all.” We know who we’re writing for and we know why we’re writing it. It just depends on how accurate and correct we want to be.

Reading Response 3

In Sven Birkerts’ essay “The Owl has Flown”, I believe that his project is to explain to his readers that we are lacking our sense of wisdom, and that we need to regain it back. Although Birkerts does not say so directly, he apparently assumes that we, as readers, must acquire wisdom, resonance, and depth, because without one you cannot use another.One passage from Birkerts’ essay that applies to my theory reads, “Resonance – there is no wisdom without it. Resonance is a natural phenomenon, the shadow of import alongside the body of fact, and it cannot flourish except in deep time. Where time has been commodified, flattened, turned into yet another thing measured, there is no chance that any piece of information can unfold its potential significance. We are destroying this deep time. Not by design, perhaps, but inadvertently. Where the electronic impulse rules, and where the psyche is conditioned to work with data, the experience of deep time is impossible. No deep time, no resonance; no resonance, no wisdom. The only remaining oases are churches (for those who still worship) and the offices of therapists. There, paying dearly for fifty minutes, the client gropes for a sense of coherence and mattering. The therapist listens; not so much explaining as simply fostering the possibility of resonance. She allows the long pauses and silences – a bold subversion of societal expectations – because only where silence is possible can the vertical engagement take place.”
To rephrase what Birkerts is insisting above, he is stating that without resonance you cannot achieve wisdom, and without depth you cannot achieve resonance. When you allow yourself to engage in a piece of writing, with nothing around to stir you but your own thoughts and feelings, you will be most likely able to gain your sense of wisdom, depth, and resonance. The last part of this passage that I believe Birkerts is trying to say is that it is only with you, some form of writing or art, and pure silence when the “vertical engagement” can happen. The vertical engagement being your ability to use wisdom, depth, and resonance correctly and plentifully while reading or writing. I believe that this passage is important to what Birkerts is saying in his essay because it seems to be placed right in the middle of the essay and it states his main point: “No deep time, no resonance; no resonance, no wisdom.” If you do not engage in your art form with any one of these key terms, you cannot do so with another. This passage is tying in every other passage that explains each term, and how clearly they are needed to fully understand a piece of work.
This passage and Birkerts’ essay as a whole sort of connects to chapter two of our book, “They Say/I Say” by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein because Birkerts is saying how you need to engage yourself not only in your work, but you need to acquire wisdom, depth, and resonance among other pieces as well. Graff and Birkenstein say that you must put yourself into other people’s shoes and see what they see, hear what they hear, and so on. Making true connections with your work and work from others seems to be the importance between these authors, and I believe they would agree with each other.

The New Literacy Summary

Clive Thompson, summary writer of "The New Literacy", presents to us how the generation prior to us feel like that the new generation is becoming illiturate due to our vast amount of technology in which we are able to socialize. Andrea Lunsford, a professor at Stanford University, conducted a rather large project called the Stanford Study of Writing in which was to study students behavior in writing samples. Lunsford collected 14,672 writing samples from the students and it included everything from in-class assignments and formal essays, to emails and blog posts. To Lunsford's surprise she found that students are more actively engaged to writing than previous years. According to Lunsford, "Technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it--and pushing our literacy in bold new directions." This means that having access to internet or text messaging is not killing the way we write, it is simply expanding and making communication much simpler for anyone to use and apply. Lunsford also stated that "Before the internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn't a school assignment." I can agree with Lunsford because my parents never had the availability to use the technology we had today when they were in high school. They primarily used the typewriter, or they had to physically find a book on their topic that one of their teachers provided and they wrote down everything. no copiers, no printers, no internet. I'm very grateful for the technology we have available because I could get all of my homework done while at home and I don't have to travel as far to find all of the materials needed to complete an assignment. Lunsford found a very key detail as to how the students were able to write, the students tend to write about persuading, organizing, and debating. These are very important to readers because the students at Stanford are using different approaches on how to make their points across in their writing. I agree with this because I like presenting to an audience rather than a "one person" audience, I like having other people's opinions and feedback on my work rather than an instructor because it only has the opinion of that person. Your paper could be the best one out there and your instructor could have a bad judgement call and say that your paper is a flop. This discourages other writers from even presenting to a group or panel because of a poor judgement call may be in their hands. What stunned Lunsford the most was when she examined the work of the first year students and found that there were zero text speak language in any of the students submitted work. I believe this points a very positive answer to the question if students were illiturate due to the our technology accesses we have available. I say, don't judge a book by its cover.

why cant you copy paste on this thing?

The New Literacy Summary

In Clive Thompson on the New Literacy essay, Thompson points out that most people should be preparing themselves for others to assume that technology is making the youth less likely to be successful in good writing. However, for most of the essay, Thompson is showing the side of and is in more support of Andrea Lunsford's research. Within a five year span, Lunsford and her team collected 14,672 student writing samples. This included in-class assignments, blog posts, and various other sources of their writing. According to Lunsford, "Technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it-- and pushing our literacy in bold new directions". In other words, these social internet websites, such as Facebook or Twitter, are helping students to develop their writing, not make it backtrack. Before the internet came into the world, Americans hardly ever wrote anything unless their job required it. This means that there weren't any public forums that agreed or disagreed with a particular topic brought up at all. Today's modern society's form of online writing is meant to be presented to an audience, such as a chat or discussion boards help provide viewers with a like or dislike about a topic. For example, a movie review can give both sides to a movie (good and bad) and it can also provide a 1-10 rating scale so as to provide better information for movie goers to base their decision on for what movie to see. Without a main point in a statement, there is no conflict. I personally agree with Lunsford because I frequently text and Facebook all the time, and i never use improper language in any of my texts because if i do that, I could create a habit into misspelling a word in an assignment given to me in class. When I write to an instructor, I find no joy in writing because there is only one audience member overlooking my writing. I like having the sense that people can have an option to express how they feel about my writing. I also find no joy in writing to an instructor because I'm never writing on a topic of my very own. It is always some variation of a topic that I have no interest in whatsoever. Feedback, to me, is one of the best learning tools I could use to help expand my writing to a whole new direction. Lunsford states that "The modern world of online writing...is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago". Lunsford brings up a very key concept of agree or disagree in text, it is much like a conversation. Without conflict or interest, there would be no right or wrong answer; it would result as a statement rather than an open qustion. As a whole, I personally agree with Lunsford's study and research done on the evolution of modern day writing. It shows a movement towards a broader acceptance of technology in the future.