Analysis Of Clive Thompson's 'On The New Literacy'

In the article, Our Semi-Literate Youth? Not so Fast written by Andrea A. Lunsford, Lunsford tells about how youth today are perceived to be less intelligent and too dependant upon technology. She goes on to show that she doesn’t agree with that assumption, she states that she has been working with college writes for over thirty years and has conducted studies showing the opposite. Lunsford thinks that with the advances in technology students are actually gaining more of a range of writing technique and greater adaptability to the changing audiences that students encounter. Through the exposure to different social medias and excess to people across the world, students have become more well rounded writers and show no decrease from the writing

LaDwaina Barron-Lillard Mrs. Gage ENG 1301 14 September 2014 A Rhetorical Analysis of “The New Literacy” Clive Thompson Thompson employs the rhetorical appeal of logos and pathos effectively in his attempt to persuade his audience of the positive effect that social media and its platform has played in reviving literacy in the new generation. Although Thompson delivers a vivid picture of the progression of literacy; then and now by using factual statements and examples along with his warm tone, dissecting all of his persuasive appeals, shows that the lack of ethical appeal may cause his target audience to doubt his credibility.

In Michaela Cullington’s essay titled, “Does Texting Affect Writing?” the author tests the ongoing question of how today’s youth handles the effects of texting in the education system. Using successful evidence from both sides of the argument as well as participating in her own experiment, Cullington is able to fully demonstrate how texting does not interfere with today’s students and their abilities to write formally in the classroom.

In Plugging In, Tuning Out, the author Don Campbell starts out his writing by talking about how his students use to tell him that they read The New York Times or The Economist in an attempt to impress him, but now his students are telling him that they read CNN.com and ESPN.com. He then continues on by talking about how technology is making the younger generation move away from the cultural experience that comes with traditional education. They are instead too focus on their technology and social media. After that Campbell moves on to talk about a study that showed how young adults are starting to incorporate their style of text messaging into their school writings. They understand that what they’re doing isn’t the best way of writing and acknowledge the fact that they need to be more formal in their homework assignments in order to be more successful.

In his article, Thompson claims that there is an “audience effect” which is causing an improvement in writing. While talking about the important aspects of the increase in online writing, Thompson states that, “When you write something online—whether it’s a one-sentence status update, a comment on someone’s photo, or a

The entire purpose of the piece “Public Thinking” written by Clive Thompson was to argue that there are numerous benefits to online writing. Thompson really focuses on getting his audience to understand that online writing is an ever growing phenomenon that is becoming a central part of learning and making up the majority of literature today. Along with showing the readers the vastness of “public thinking”, Thompson’s primary purpose of this article was to show how beneficial online writing is and how important it is in terms of expanding the popularity of writing and learning. Thompson doesn’t just throw that out there and assume he is going to persuade everyone, he focuses on the smaller aspects of the benefits of online writing and builds

Additionally, having social media and the internet, texting, email etc., also creates more chances of writing. Most parents and teachers think that this is causing a downfall in school and literacy capabilities but in reality its actually helping. According to Thompson (Source G), she believes we are in the middle of a literacy revolution. This generation writes more than any other generation before. Most peoples’ writing happens outside the classroom. It

Technology is quickly becoming a huge part of day to day life for nearly everyone. If you walk around most places, you will see a large percent of people either on their cell phones, on their computers, or using some other electronic device. While some of it is being used for business and other important things, most of the time, it is more for entertainment. It is because of this that people claim that technology is changing the way people think today. In his article “Is Google making us stupid”, Nicholas Carr argues that people have become dependent upon the internet for information rather than having to work to figure it out. In the article “Does texting effect writing”, Michaela Cullington argues that people’s texting is effecting the way people write because people don’t show emotion when texting, so that is translating back into their writing. Both arguments are effective, both appeal to emotion, but the more effective argument is Carr’s because it is a more sound argument based on logic and credibility.

Clive Thompson, in his chapter excerpt “Public Thinking,” from the book Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds For the Better published by Penguin Group, argues that the development of technology of mass communication improves the user’s writing and their ability to collaborate. To support his argument, he incorporates statistics to show the enormity of the production of writing, anecdotes to connect with the reader’s emotions, experiments to support the claim that people perform better in front of an audience, Stanford Study of Writing to support the claim that students are writing more than before and history to debate how the

Popular social media sites students are using are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. By using theses sites they are reading different posts about different topics giving them knowledge about different things happening in the world as well as different opinions in certain subjects (Li, Snow, and White, 2015). On Twitter they can look up trending hash tags if they are curious about a certain event or anything they find interesting. This way they are reading information they find intriguing. An ELL is more likely to read and understand a topic if it has meaning to them and they want to know more about it. Social media gives them the opportunity to read what their friends have to say and they can write their own posts. Practicing writing in another language is very important for ELLs and if using technology helps them want to do so more, then teachers should find a way to incorporate this in the classroom (Li, Snow, and White, 2015). A way do to so if having students create a tweet about what they learned in class on a specific topic then responding to other classmates. That way they are using their reading and writing skills they learned in class. ELLs are eager to use technology because it is a fun way to practice what they learned in school. However, especially in lower social economic statuses, students are more inclined to not

In the article “Studies Explore Whether the Internet Makes Students Better Writers” (From Inquiry to Academic Writing 2015) by Josh Keller, the writing techniques of college students at Stanford University is examine and debated if the nontraditional writing assignments helped the writing skills of students. The article is a debate of whether the new generations of students who love to blog, send messages on Facebook, or even on twitter have the necessary skills to become skilled writers. In 2006 a Stanford University student actually graduated with writing the nontraditional paper assignments. There were still educators who were in disbelief that students could write in the nontraditional styles and become effective writers in society, that

Technology is taking over writing in school. Passage number two says that students are required to turn in typed essays and papaers. Typing classes are growing in schools because we right less and less to prepare us how to type. Most jobs today always send out emails and type up documents to other employees. Paasage number two also states that with technogoly growing everyday that even keyboards might not even exsist anymore.

In classrooms where the emphasis of cursive writing has been abandoned, the time taken away from learning to properly write, will be focused more on subjects like math, reading, and typing (Lee 98). It is assumed that student’s handwriting will eventually advance by surrounding the students with works of literature where they have the convenience of interpreting famous literary works into their own writing (Graham 10). Opposers argue that handwriting is antiquated and it is just a matter of time until technology will

A real audience forces most students to reconsider how they word their ideas. To avoid looking illiterate, most students will consult their teacher or a grammar and usage book to make sure they are adhering to good grammar guidelines. By writing online students feel motivated to do their best. For example, George Mayo, a Maryland middle school 8th grade teacher, found this to be the case. According to Morgan,“Mayo remarked that the level of motivation in his class soared when his students found out that pupils as far away as China were participating.” Therefore, social media can writing by motivating students to do their best.

As I was reading “The New Teacher Book,” I started thinking to myself, “What exactly am I looking for again?” I knew that I had to find three important things that stuck out to me, but I did not really know what I was really looking for. I was aimlessly searching for the answers in the stories told by so many first year teachers, like Bill Bigelow, Kelley Salas, and Stephanie Walters. They were all confused and frustrated just like I was, except for different reasons. However, it was in their stories that I finally found what I was looking for.