Sure the kids are writing more, but are they learning the correct kind of writing? Only one skill matters: the ability to write and email that is both responsive and doesn't commit you to anything concrete.
One thing that has changed in my lifetime about errors in writing is that simple spelling errors are now corrected to proper words, rendering sentences inane. If you see what I mane. The number of errors remains roughly constant but the kind is different.
I worry about what kids are learning in history. My son's class is learning about central American history, starting with the Olmec, Maya, and Aztec. The book never once mentions aliens.
I think traditional skills involved with writing had their good points. That's why I want kindergartens to go back to using dip pens and ink wells.
Everything basically went to shit when the Long S fell out of use. Sorry, uſe.
I've remembered here before that learning to use straight pens was still on the Ottawa public schools curriculum in the early sixties.
My daughter uses cursive but had to teach herself and practice.
I wouldn't say that progress is a fiction. According to the previous thread, we have slightly better Nazis than we used to. That's progress, right?
I was actually on a committee last year that was charged with drafting a "professionalism in electronic communications" document for students. A lot of it was basic "emails to your professor and/or employer are different from casual emails to your friends" stuff. It seems obvious but saying it explicitly was surprisingly necessary.
On the other hand, kids today are almost as handy with a stylus and tablet as they were in my day.
I think kids should have to learn cursive. Why should they suffer less than I did?
"emails to your professor and/or employer are different from casual emails to your friends"
If you're going to send them a picture of your dick, pay attention to proper lighting.
My kids are learning cursive this year, in some countries they still require. The older kids hate it but the 7yo had no problem adapting.
Like H-G, commenting at unfogged helped my writing significantly (I find it comic how stiff and stilted my early comments were).
In my limited experience, I saw text speak in a couple of in class midterms, but never in a paper. The only one I remember was b2b, which turned out in context to mean back to back.
Didn't we have a commenter named text?
Yes. But not, at least since I've been here, one named subtext.
the worst is trying to convince my kid to use proper capitalization in his writing. he insists its cool to write everything in all lower case. i work hard to fight it, i don't want him to be one of those annoying people.
this turns out to be yet another area in which youtube comments are a bad influence.
If he finds it cool at age 13, I think you can rest assured it won't be permanent.
That's what they said about the hair dye and it's still orange.
one of those annoying people
like ee cummings (but
heh i
just said cummings)
This seems like either a sampling error or evidence that things have changed substantially in the past 10 years. I had a solidly non-zero number of instances of text speak in papers every semester I taught- not every student, by any means, but way more than occasionally.
21: Ex recto guess: things have changed in the past 10 years. Back then, you had to pay for individual texts on most phones and they had a limit of 140 characters or something. 160? Am I thinking of Twitter? Now, more plans have unlimited texting. Text messages still technically have character limits but if you write one that's too long, modern phones break it up into more messages and present them to the viewer seamlessly.
Also, phones don't have T9 keypads. I don't know exactly when they started giving way to smartphones with full keyboards, but I think I got one with a full keyboard in 2008 and felt behind the times. So, money and presentation aside, it's just plain easier to write longer messages, so people don't need text-speak.
I write first drafts of everything in pretty much the voice I use here because it's how I think. I assume it's only a matter of time before I accidentally submit a brief that starts with "Ok but..."
Also I definitely remember teachers in high school drawing smiley faces when they liked something so sure "lol nope, C-" sounds right.
Oh man. Since I started blogging, I've pretty well lost my ability to write in any other voice.
When my kids were teenagers with phones, about a decade ago, text-speak was passe and they refused to use it. Once you got used to it writing with T9 was easy and you could make it as literate as you liked.
Aegi said he overheard 23 year olds at work being like "what does TTYL mean?" "Oh it's something old people say." I mean he's old and he says TTYL so maybe they're right.
26: I tried to use T9 literately, but I attribute that to being a writer/editor. I think I'm in a minority.
"Text-speak" is vague anyway. There's a library of initialisms like TTYL, but there's also just leaving out silent letters or common typos being used carelessly. "wat r u doin", for example. I'm much more likely to use initialisms than to spell words like that.
I'm reteaching myself cursive because I have to write a huge quantity of notes by hand for work, and it turns out cursive is quicker.
27. So what to 23 year olds text when they want to say TTYL?
"With fondest thoughts until our next meeting and warm hopes for the conversations that will take place then.
Your obedient Servant,
X"
I hope people, especially hip-hop musicians, keep trying to do business deals via text message, because reading those texts out loud in deposition is one of the bright spots of my otherwise dull existence.
Most of my son's written communication is via the chat feature on Minecraft. They are all about the shortcuts, even now that he has learned to type ridiculously well.
On the other hand, he frequently pronounces the word "Lol" to indicate something that is funny. It makes me cringe.
OK, but, uh....the article that prompts the blog post is 8 years old.
8 years old is when today's freshmen were 8.
The JSTOR blogger doesn't mention this but it kinda seems relevant.
8-year-olds don't even know a world without JSTOR.
This is probably the thread to share that I gave my daughter's classroom some time to turn around but today went badly and so I emailed the principal and said, "Ok but I want her in with the teacher her teacher from last year recommends" and he immediately agreed. One more day with the old folks and then a much-needed fresh start. Yay, white privilege plus countless hours helping that principal at the old school!
Does the principal agree that the teacher needs to improve?
38: Yes, definitely, and work is being done there. But they can improve on their own time and away from my kid, basically.