Slang and Email Won’t Hurt Writers
Electronic communication is not to be feared, nor are alternative discourses (hip hop, popular media, etc.) if we understand the basics of rhetoric, that is, that all forms of oral and written expression occur within certain frameworks. Teaching writing should be a matter of teaching how writers can negotiate these different frameworks (genres) and occasions. Novice writers need to learn how and when different types of language or argument work and are appropriate; they need to practice making choices; they need to learn to write within specific contexts (not to do some decontextualized exercises), and they need to know about the processes good writers use, such as getting feedback and revising; above all, they need a human reader who provides feedback and encourages thoughtful and reasoned revision–not a machine which scores an essay and then asks for a “right” answer.
What frightens me is not the use of IM or email slang; we can teach students that’s not the appropriate tone for academic writing. They learn quickly when we tell them it’s not acceptable.
Students need to write often, to real experts and readers who respond to the content and form and style of their writing, who show them that what they write and how they write it matters to someone (and not just to an English teacher). They need guidance and time to develop as their thinking matures and their knowledge deepens. They can’t learn writing in one course and not use it again, and they can’t learn one type of writing (say, literary analysis) and be expected to transfer to other types (like scientific articles). We must not give students the impression that writing classes are a hurdle to pass before they get into real academic work. We must demonstrate that all academics and in fact most professionals are writers, and that writing is integrated with thinking.
What is worse is technology that promises cheap solutions to teaching writing or that tries to isolate it to a particular place in the curriculum. Automatic grading programs that use artificial intelligence to find errors and guess at content give the wrong message about why we write, no matter how well they mimic a human reader.
