The Rotten Weird
Yeah, I no that the tittle of this log post has misspelled woods in it. But it past thru spelt cheek with know prob. Sew it most bee OL. Hears a store about witting.
Once upon a time we wrote papers by hand and, when we were certain that they were ready, we typed them on a typewriter. We spent a lot of time honing our ideas and writing drafts. We didn’t want to retype pages if we could avoid it. We looked carefully at our spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and made sure that we wrote full sentences and clear paragraphs. We understood the importance of citing other people’s ideas. We read the papers before we handed them in, and we took pride in what we had written.
Many students today will never know this feeling. Technology is interfering with the writing process. In general, I like the advantages provided by technology—it’s much easier to edit my writing, to make changes as my thoughts more fully develop, and to create beautifully formatted documents. But I also think that technology is interfering with the thought processes necessary for good writing. It’s too easy to substitute spell check and grammar check for proofreading. And it’s too convenient to do otherwise.
I’m seeing an increase in the number of courses in which students are being taught how to communicate through videos and other multimedia. I think that this is a good thing. But not at the expense of written communication. I think that every Rutgers graduate, regardless of country of origin, should be able to write coherently. And I’m not sure that we’re doing what is best for out students when we increase multimedia communication and reduce written communication.
What do you think?
Once upon a time we wrote papers by hand and, when we were certain that they were ready, we typed them on a typewriter. We spent a lot of time honing our ideas and writing drafts. We didn’t want to retype pages if we could avoid it. We looked carefully at our spelling, grammar, and punctuation, and made sure that we wrote full sentences and clear paragraphs. We understood the importance of citing other people’s ideas. We read the papers before we handed them in, and we took pride in what we had written.
Many students today will never know this feeling. Technology is interfering with the writing process. In general, I like the advantages provided by technology—it’s much easier to edit my writing, to make changes as my thoughts more fully develop, and to create beautifully formatted documents. But I also think that technology is interfering with the thought processes necessary for good writing. It’s too easy to substitute spell check and grammar check for proofreading. And it’s too convenient to do otherwise.
I’m seeing an increase in the number of courses in which students are being taught how to communicate through videos and other multimedia. I think that this is a good thing. But not at the expense of written communication. I think that every Rutgers graduate, regardless of country of origin, should be able to write coherently. And I’m not sure that we’re doing what is best for out students when we increase multimedia communication and reduce written communication.
What do you think?
posted by Gayle Stein at
7:45 PM
10 Comments:
I am interested to know how many students get bad grades on writing assignments vs how many are getting good grades. I think we can safely assume that most professors require typed writing assignments to be submitted. With that being said , how many are doing poorly because of spell check ?
In this era,correct spelling and punctuation has fallen on the wayside from the rising thumb exercises of ritualistic texting and OMG'ing. This is my coining of how the world is technologically enabling todays youth into a gradually voiceless automated communications group. This is a well crafted analysis of our generations communications habits.
Pretty sure that's the objective of Expos 1 and 2. Your idea is nice, but it's kind of like suggesting everyone learn Morse code after the telephone had been invented. Most writing classes at the university today rely heavily on peer editing, because even if you proof your own work, someone else is more likely to catch a mistake than you are, it's always good to have a fresh set of eyes.
For example, I don't know if it was intentional or not but you wrote "And I’m not sure that we’re doing what is best for out students when we increase...", where it should be "our students". Even with your education in the "traditional school" of writing, you are prone to make mistakes, that's why it helps to have others proof your work.
Our district convened two meetings with speacial education teachers from each grade level and/or discipline where we discussed this exact topic.
We agreed that technology and muli-media had it's place, but that writing competency was fast falling aside. Here's what we we thought.
We believe that writing is more about the process than the product. That good structured writing requires metacognitive reflection and that it is simply, as one writer stated, a 'morse code' activity. As educators, we struggle with the student body's poor abilities to analyze a situation with which they are unfamiliar and 'talk' themselves through it. We believe (and our group contained chemistry teachers, physics teachers,too) and agreed that our biggest struggle with technology is that it appears to reduce the truly reflective 'self-talk' that is necessary for true deep learning that will take our students into the next century as intellectual leaders, at whatever level they achieve. The 'fast fix' cheats the students out of the reflective meat that constructs deep meaning and learning.
Just something to chew on...
Rich caught a shining example above: even when you proofread, you aren't guaranteed to remove all errors.
No one yet has mentioned how you started two sentences with "And" and two sentences with "But," which are both conjunctions. Since they are conjunctions, by their definition they should not be used to start a sentence. Normally it is okay in informal writing, but there is no excuse to write this way while lamenting about the declination of student writing skills.
If you are going to comment on or criticize student writing, please be sure that *your* writing does not exhibit similar errors.
This isn't just a phenomenon of Rutgers, the university in general, or student writing, but something happening to the whole human race. Form influences practice and content. We are living through a kind of global transitional phase in the ways that people express themselves. Who knows what kind of ultimate changes are in store?
I have had some of the same thoughts about the ways we used to write, have described the same old-fashioned writing process to my students. What stands out for me, and what I emphasize to my students, is how much the old process forced the writer to think before he wrote. To be honest, I don't really mind the spelling and typos (can we really still call them that?) that slip through. Those are matters that a student can take care of by making a few conscientious adjustments to their editing process. What really worries me is that for students, and for all of us, writing has become less and less of a thinking process and more of a mechanical one. In the old days, and I'm sure for many still, much of the writing process consisted of sitting there and, ostensibly, doing nothing. Of course, you weren't doing nothing--you were thinking of what you wanted to say and the best way to say it. If a student doesn't do that, then the assignment is a waste, since we don't, at least in my field (philosophy) assign student essays to get great essays, but rather to force the students to go through a rigorous process of thinking about an issue.
I completely agree and I can sadly say that I am one of the students you tak about. Although I usually do well on my written assignments my 400 level classes have been a challenge because I do not proof read my papers.
You think that's bad, wait until you get the new generation of students in about a few years who think 'words' like LOL, btw, nvm, etc. (i.e. internet chat "lingo", even though I cringe that anyone really considers this language), ARE REAL WORDS in the English language, and will use them on assignments, and God forbid, techical reports. I was lucky to be in the generation that was able to embrace computers, but not forget what real communication is. I fear the future of this world with the clueless ideas and actions of the people in it.
Technology has eased life a lot, helping us to find a 'shorter path' of efficiency. However, this also unfortunately spills into human action, where sum1 thinks ur kiddin n rly rofls wen u tell them this sentence is horribly typed and will lol.
I have never noticed so many typing errors in a series of posts before.
I believe Rutgers ensures that the students are able to write coherently via Expos 101!!!!>>>> also many courses require in-class written papers as opposed to typed papers.... So where is the problem?!?! that we are getting more tech advanced?!?! HA!
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