Conflicting Reports on Student Writing Quality - Better or Worse?

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Permalink Reply by Mary Pat Lichtman on August 10, 2011 at 3:27pm

In my experiences, on campus students do not write as well. They tend to use chat language more often and are not as interested in writing prose or research papers. They also don't read as well, because most of their time is spent on social media writing and reading. Their attention spans are very short.  I have a difficult time getting them to read a textbook unless it's full of graphics. They can transfer from writing a press release or a news story for print or online publication to pitching it to others in terms of Twitter or Facebook or other sites.

 

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Permalink Reply by Steve Hargadon on August 10, 2011 at 3:32pm

Fascinating.  Hard to imagine where this is all going.  I hadn't thought about the reading aspect, so glad you've brought it up.

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Permalink Reply by Peter Lane on August 10, 2011 at 4:46pm

In my middle-school intervention reading classes I try to keep the instruction going by having the flow change every 15-20 minutes.  This keeps them engaged as I have found that if we take more than that they become distracted and off-task.  As the year progresses I try to stretch out our segments so they end up reading for longer periods - the same is true for our writing assignments.  I find that they are able to focus more as the year progresses.  Unfortunately, the summer break tends to kill any progress we have made... :(

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Permalink Reply by Jessie Ragan on September 2, 2011 at 11:27am

I am currently a college student, and I find that my own writing skills have not decreased since the rise of texting and Internet use. I may be an exception to the rule, but I still find that I enjoy writing, and I am a fairly decent writer. Although I do see where you are coming from with the texting and Internet use being a hindrance to writing in general, I think that it all depends on the person. If the person wants to write and actually enjoys it, it seems that he or she tends to write better than those who dislike writing. Of course, I'm sure it does depend on increased technology use to a point, but I'm not sure that is solely to blame. I hope this helps!

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