Writing, Technology, and Teens

The article “Writing, Technology, and Teens: Summary of Findings” written by Amanda Lenhart, Aaron Smith, Alexandra Macgill, and Sousan Arafeh is about how technology impacts teens and the way they write.  To find this out they conducted a research, probably a survey, to see what other people thought about these topics. The main idea is that whether or not the informal writing of teens through texting and other communications has an impact on students’ formal writing in school. Sixty percent of teens believe that their technology enriched lives and spending time texting does not make a difference in their writing because they do not consider it writing. Except, thirty-eight percent of teens have admitted that they use texting shortcuts for school work. Several parents believe the ability to write well formally will help their teens in the future. It is an important skill to have for success. Teen want to write more when they get to pick their topic or have one that they are interested in instead of something they are told to do by their teacher. It is more likely for teens to write on their own with no school connection. Also, students write using computers more often than handwriting when it has to be done for school, but when they write for pleasure they write on paper. This article included a lot of data about writing and teens. It also included the open of more than just what teens or the student believes. I think this gives the article reliable and less biased. If the article was just the opinion of teens and what they thought it would be biased because both sides were not shown. The authors wrote the article because it is an important topic with the advancements in technology. Technology is doing great things like allowing soldiers skype with their families and let businesses communicate all around the world. But the question of whether it has a negative effect on students writing is important because students are the future. Since writing is an important skill to have to be successful it is quite important that we do not let technology impede on the skill.

 

Word count: 360

Texting and Writing

In the article “Texting and Writing” written by Michaela Cullington, she points out the positives and negatives of Texting. In 2008, only twenty-five percent of high school students were writing at a “proficient” level.  Jaquline Ream blames the writing levels of high school students on texting. She believes that because of texting this teenage generation has grown up with a lack of communication skills. Both Ream and students believe texting has a negative relationship with student abilities with spelling. Instead they are using abbreviations created while texting. For example, teenagers are using gr8 instead of great.  They are also not capitalizing when a letter should be, as well as having a lack of punctuation. Others point out that texting lacks emotion besides when the sideways smiley faces are used. On the other hand, some believe that texting lets teenagers to be creative.  They are able to practice writing by doing something they enjoy. Texting can be the jumpstart to get students to enjoy writing again.  Teenagers’ ability to express their thoughts in as few as words and as concise as possible is something that will help with their writing. David Warlick believes teenagers have developed a new language for the hi-tech world. Teens have the ability to understand one another by using abbreviations, numbers, and symbols. Michaela conducted her own research about how texting impacts writing. She interviewed and got the opinion of seven high school and college students, asking them several questions about their personal experiences.  She also asked for some teachers opinions to see if they see this problem in their students writing. The research determined that texting does not impact their writing in a negative way because students know that textspeak is not meant to be used in formal writing. Many students do not use abbreviations in their text messages and some find it easier to spell everything out.  This article shows the pros and cons on the impact of texting on writing. Michaela researched the topic as well as conducting her own research by asking both students and teachers. She asked both because it is important to get the opinion from both sides.

Word count: 357

D. Baron

In the article, From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology by Dennis Baron, goes through the stages of technology and the ways it effected and changed writing. There are several stages of Literacy Technologies starting with writing itself. Plato was against it, worried it would weaken our memories. Writing first dates back to 3500 BCE. It is said that no more than ten percent of the ancient Greek and Romans were literate back then. Inscriptions that looked like pictures were used to communicate in the written form instead of letters. But more recently there was a big change when the pencil came out. Everything was no longer in just ink, although still to today, signatures and other more important documents are preferred to be written with pen instead of pencil. Also, typewriters transformed to computers making it different being able to delete what you have written on a computer. Some writers refused to conform to technology, sticking with their typewriters through the years. The written language takes on a whole new meaning over the spoken language. When things are in writing it takes it to the next level making a conversation into a letter. Writing is different than spoken because when something is says there are expressions shown with the tone of the speaker, their facial expressions and the stress of their voice. Writing was an amazing thing but it also came with some not so good things as well such as fraud. When the telephone was first invented, many thought it was an impractical way of communication, but now it is used in the day to day life and we do not know what to do without it.  The ways people live have changed significantly because of the changes in technology with writing and the language. When computers came out with a spell-check, teachers did not want to let their students know about it out of fear that they would forget how to spell. Now everyone uses it and people can still spell even though some rely on spell check.  The point of this article was to let his audience, students of all ages learning about writing, the way that technology has changed writing and the way we write today. It gives students a perspective of where writing comes from and a new appreciation for it.   

Comparing Writing Processes

My writing process differs from my partner in just a few ways, but in many ways they are similar.  My writing process is different because I usually do not take the time to brainstorm ideas unlike Sarah. I go right into the outline if I even make one. Sarah takes the time to brainstorm ideas and then take those ideas to form a good outline of her ideas to make different paragraphs that flow and go together well. Also, Sarah writes better with pen and paper and then types it looking for grammar and spelling errors while I like to write by typing on the computer and waiting for the little squiggly line to appear underneath within seconds. For me it is more of a preference than anything, I do not see a difference in my writing whether it is typed or written first. Pretty much everything else is very similar for both of us.  I believe it is this way because we both absolutely hate writing.  When it comes to writing we both have to be in the mood. If we are not in the right mood, nothing will get done.  This is part of the reason why we procrastinate and wait until the last minute to write and finish the paper.  I know sometimes right when the work is assigned, I will start but then put it off until two nights before it is due.  Sarah only spends an hour on editing her paper which at times can be more than I do because I wait until the last minute to where I hardly have enough time to read over my paper before I turn it in. During the editing process, Sarah looks to change words and find better fits to help be more descriptive and have different word choice. I hardly ever go back through and look for that unless the teacher specifically states to look for that when editing.  I think every ones writing process has similarities and differences depending on how much they enjoy writing as well as their abilities with writing.  

Murray

1. Murray’s writing process is way different than mine.  There was a study to find out his process through three stages. First, they used a tape-recorder and left it on for long periods of time so he was able to think aloud and have his thoughts from everywhere he went. The study would use a tape-recorder again looking for audience, subject, and purpose.  The last step to the study was to look at the way he performed his writing tasks.  This is different than almost everybody. Murray takes notes in a book and then speaks out loud to his wife who was a typist. He would read of his draft, change his notes, and then speak to his wife again. He went through eight different drafts before he turned something in.

3. Berkenkotter learned in his studies that Murray spends the most time on planning and then goes to evaluating and editing. He does not spend much time on revising. Murray plans a lot and has a couple different ways of planning such as outlines and rhetorical goals. The writer edits what they think is their final draft but it really isn’t after they realize they have several mistakes and change everything around once again.  As writers write they don’t plan, translate, and review their work again; it is a working process which cycles through multiple times.

4. A weakness in studying the writing process is taking the writer out of their natural element to study their process. To study them accurately they need to stay in the environment they usually are in when writing.  When the tapes were used for the study, they have a lot of information but are not completely accurate because Murray was distracted by the university problems. It is also hard when writers are working on a piece for months and suddenly are in a different environment with a foreign topic to write about in just an hour. Murray normally does not work quickly so when he only had an hour to work his mind went somewhere different.

My Writing Process

My writing process could probably be better if I had more of a passion for writing. Half of the time I do not care or know about what I am writing, therefore half heart my work. My writing process lacks a couple of important steps at times but that is why it is my process.  If the paper or essay is about a book, then as I read I use post-it notes to mark the important spots that could help me in the process of writing my essay. In high school we were always given a few prompts, so I used different colors of post-its to mark the different themes or topics. Then I would go back through and see which topic I had the most on as well as the strongest points. Pre-writing almost never occurred unless it was an activity done in class. I never thought about it being an important step to writing a good essay but it could help later on, looking back on it. More than not I would make an outline. Sometimes my outlines were more in depth than others, it all depended on how much passion I had about the topic. Sometimes all I would have are my three main points and other times I would also include a good topic sentence as well as a couple quotes to be sure to add. As I wrote my essay, my draft was more like my final essay because I paid close attention as I wrote. Sometimes I had a hard thinking of a way to put my ideas down on paper because I felt very repetitive, which I did not like. Looking back, I notice it was easier for me to write when I had more of an outline of my essay which also meant I cared about it more. I can only remember a handful of essays that I went back and read through and revised. It almost never happens. I am lucky if I get to proofreading because by the time I finish all my paragraphs I am ready to be finished with the easy.