Reading Response #1

Response to: Clive Thompson on the New Literacy.


In his recent work, Clive Thompson suggests Facebook and texting have not made students of today writing illiterates. Thompson looks at the findings of Andrea Lunsford, a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University. After reviewing over 14,000 students writing samples, Lunsford believes that we are not going backwards in our writing abilities but quite the opposite “we are in the midst of a literacy revolution”. Thompson goes on to say that most Americans never wrote anything, outside school, before the internet. The recognition of the amount of writing that is going on now is a very significant part of this article. One implication of Thompsons is that perhaps even more significant is the type of writing that is going on now. According to Lunsford’s teams findings students were incredibly skillful at knowing their audience and writing towards them. Thompsons stated that students today are far more interested in writing than the students that were only writing for the audience of their professor. Today students are motivated to persuade and debate. They are further motivated by the challenge of organizing their thoughts and opinions to share with a larger audience. My own view is that Thompson, Lunsford and her team are absolutely right. Though I recognize that some might feel that the use of texting and Facebook shorthand stunt or inhibit a student’s spelling or writing abilities, I strongly agree with the articles findings that this only encourages better academics. I have an outstanding example of this in my own life. I have been homeschooled for my education. My younger brothers have as well. I have watched my one brother struggle with several learning disabilities. My mother tried many different curriculums and programs to try and advance his learning. She even took him to specialized tutor. With all of those efforts he moved forward very slowly. The thing that made the biggest difference was the summer he got a cell phone. He was motivated to texted, so he worked on spelling and writing. His reading also went up several grade levels. The next big jump came when he got a Facebook account. He was writing and reading more. Not only did his academics increase, but also his confidence. I think this is another good point to note. The more a student spends using the writing to convey their thoughts, the more confident they come. I could not agree more with value in the type of writing that is going on in social networking. The importance of knowing how to put thoughts and ideas into writing is invaluable. It is one thing to be able to write a research paper because it is assigned it might lack much personal enthusiasm and be kept minimal just to complete the task. Take that same student and put him in a chat room dealing with a topic that he is passion about and his words cannot flow fast enough. He is compelled to use far more of his writing skills to convey his thoughts then writing the research paper. This issue is important in understanding the academic value to social networking.