Blogging encourages teen writing

The same Pew Research study that alarmed many about the effect text messaging and instant messaging are having on writing also included some positive information about teen bloggers. The blogging phenomenon is encouraging writing among teens:

Teen bloggers, however, write more frequently both online and offline, the study says.

Forty-seven percent of teen bloggers write outside of school for personal reasons several times a week or more, compared with 33 percent of teens without blogs. Sixty-five percent of teen bloggers believe that writing is essential to later success in life; 53 percent of non-bloggers say the same thing.

Bradley A. Hammer, who teaches in Duke University's writing program, says the kind of writing students do on blogs and other digital formats actually can be better than the writing style they learn in school, because it is better suited to true intellectual pursuit than is SAT-style writing.

"In real ways, blogging and other forms of virtual debate actually foster the very types of intellectual exchange, analysis, and argumentative writing that universities value," he wrote in an op-ed piece last August

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Teachers gone wild on the internet

Today's Washington Post features an article on young teachers who do not have the common sense to be careful with what they post on their Facebook and MySpace pages:

One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."

Just to be clear, these are not teenagers, the typical Internet scofflaws and sources of ceaseless discussion about cyber-bullying, sexual predators and so on. These are adults, many in their 20s, who are behaving, for the most part, like young adults.

But the crudeness of some Facebook or MySpace teacher profiles, which are far, far away from sanitized Web sites ending in ".edu," prompts questions emblematic of our times: Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don't see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?

Facebook and MySpace can be wonderful sites for teachers, if used properly. When they are used in the fashion described in this article, it makes you wonder about whether these teachers belong in the classroom influencing young people.

Experts divided on text messaging/instant messaging as writing

A just-published study by the Pew Foundation shows wide disagreement among experts about whether text messaging and instant messaging are helpful or damaging to writing:

Some see it as a sign that young people are interested in the written word and simply need to be encouraged to expand their endeavors into more serious topics.

"I think it’s quite exciting to see so much writing going on in any form," said Richard Sterling, chairman of the advisory board of the National Commission on Writing. "It leads people to other parts of the spectrum."

Others say the tech-flavored style – heavy on horrid punctuation and shortcuts such as "LOL," for laugh out loud — encourages bad habits while contributing nothing to improved writing skills.

To think otherwise would be the same as suggesting that 18th Century telegraph operators were improving their own writing skills, said Michael Bugeja, director of Iowa State University’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

"I don’t even want to hear such nonsense," Bugeja said.

As someone who has taught English to teens for the past nine years, I find I agree with those who don't see text messaging and instant messaging as the death of all writing. At first, when I began to see the LOLs and TTYL in messages from students, I nearly panicked about the possibility for erosion of writing skills, but that is not taking place. I liken it to people who learn to write or speak in more than one language. I see few students who try to insert text messaging language into formal papers or formal language into text messaging.

There are always negative people who see each development in our culture as the end of mankind.

Let me know what you think.