Meagan's post about Clive Thompson

In his recent work, Clive Thompson suggests that “kids today can’t write- and technology is to blame.” This states Thompson believes that many students today in America do not know how to write and that we can blame computers and cell phones and things like that. Thompson claims “Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric at Stanford University, where she has organize a mammoth project called Stanford Study of Writing to scrutinize colleges students’ prose.” Lunsford to 14, 672 writings from students and observed what they were saying. No where is any of the essays and writing did she see any words or texts that were related to texting. Lunsford claims “ I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the liked of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.” In Andrea Lunsford’s observation she realized that most students or “young people” do a lot more of writing then the generation before them. Lunsford claims” That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves texts.” In this essay Thompson claims “Before the Internet came along, most Americans never wrote anything, ever, that wasn’t a school assignment.” So many people no of days have the ability to write something and post it online and no one will find out who they are. You can use fake names while posting a blog and no one will no. In Thompson’s essay he describes how students have a great ability now of days for “assessing their audience, and adapting their tone…” Many students can get their point across in the write way. Students were saying in interviews how they feel that good writing is only good writing if it has “had an effect on the world.” Almost every time a student writes something it is about persuading, summarizing, debating and so on. The writing that was assigned at Stanford the students did not look forward to because the only person that was going to read it was their professor and they are writing to determine a grade not really to get a certain point across. Thompson claims “When Lunsford examined the work of first- year students, she didn’t find a single example of texting speak in an academic paper.” Most teachers in give your prompts were you need to persuade in your essay or debating the subject that you are talking about. Thompson also claims that “good teaching is always going to be crucial, as is the mastering of formal academic prose.” As I said many teachers give prompts that cause you to write as if you were debating. A the end of Thompson’s essay he states “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.” Most writing even in High school is based upon the fact or knowing who you are writing to, I think that things like this are just pushed into your brain at such a young age that, that type of writing is the only way that you know how to write. My own view is that the reason why we write the way we do is because it is how it is taught to us.