What is “The New Literacy”?
The debate continues whether kids can write today and if they can’t, is technology to blame? In a recent article from wired.com Clive Thompson writes internet social networking “encourages narcissistic blabbering”. He adds, “video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’ (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland moaned).” He boldly claims, “an age of illiteracy is at hand…” and immediately questions his own claim, “an age of illiteracy is at hand, right?”
The debate continues whether kids can write today and if they can’t, is technology to blame? In a recent article from wired.com Clive Thompson writes internet social networking “encourages narcissistic blabbering”. He adds, “video and PowerPoint have replaced carefully crafted essays, and texting has dehydrated language into ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’ (as University College of London English professor John Sutherland moaned).” He boldly claims, “an age of illiteracy is at hand…” and immediately questions his own claim, “an age of illiteracy is at hand, right?”
My view of literacy is when a person has knowledge of literature and writing. I agree that MySpace and Facebook encourage narcissistic blabbering, but writing is only half of literacy and I wonder if kids today are even familiar with Narcissus to fully understand the assertion. Have they lost both reading and writing?
There is some evidence that technology may be enhancing writing skills. Andrea Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she organized a project called the Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize college students' prose. From 2001 to 2006, she collected 14,672 student writing samples—everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. She claims, “we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization". Some people believe before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything that wasn't a school assignment. For Lunsford, technology may be causing student’s writing skills to evolve and may actually be an improvement over previous generations because online writing is aimed at an audience and requires adapting tone and technique to get a point across. Most people would agree, these are important skills for effective writing, but do we believe literacy can be defined by assessing one aspect, writing skills?
Where is the assessment of literacy based on exposure to classical literature and thought compared to contemporary writing style or substance? More time is spent on the internet than reading books and a culture of quick resource acquisition has replaced reading books cover to cover. Just before Christmas 2009 Amazon.com announced electronic book sales (kindle) had passed hardcover and softcover book sales for the first time ever. We have become a culture of quick sound bites, wiki definitions where the depth and volume of a subject is condensed for quick consumption, and exposure to information or literature can be compared to rapid fire cliff notes.
Thompson concludes what today’s young people know is knowing who you’re writing for and why you’re writing might be the most crucial factor of all. While I acknowledge the importance of writing for the audience with intention, I also believe exposure to classic works of great authors teaches appreciation of nuance in writing. While young people’s writing may use words that have meaning to the reader, there are authors whose use of style grabs you, holds you, reaches inside and touches you, where you see the colors, feel the warmth, taste the subtle flavor of the words. Lunsford found that students were remarkably adept at assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. Words can also tell a story, take the reader by the hand to lead them to a familiar and comfortable place where the author and the reader are sharing in a journey.
Some people claim technology is harming literacy and culture is in decline. Others argue we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization. Our culture is in transition and traditional methods of measuring literacy are being reevaluated. The debate continues whether kids can write today and if they can’t, is technology to blame? I agree that the amount of writing has increased with technology but feel the depth of literacy may have suffered.
My view is we are questioning cultural changes in literacy using polar opposite viewpoints or perspectives, and focusing on different aspects while overlooking others. Literacy is only one indication of the enormous cultural changes we are seeing. This article appears to present the debate of extreme cultural perspectives as a new issue. The debate can be summed up with a comparison made in 1859. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”, and a simple question to name the book, the author, and the locations, answers I believe are being lost with technology.
Man paragraph 4... great example. The idea that tech might be bleeding out the respect for some of the greater works in literature has some truth to it I'm sure, but another thing to think about is the access to those same works is being increased dramatically. There will be more with more access to information then ever before in the following generations. The idea that a person would know how to read or even own a few books was reserved for the rich or well-to-do a few generations ago. Think about how many people of completely different demography get the opportunity to have access to information that just a few short years was inaccessible to most. "May you live in interesting times" is the quote I feel is applicable here, as we change due to our exponential growth in tech we will see many things happen that seem strange or even "bad" when really they raise the bar for us all a great deal. Well written friend see you in class.
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