Reading the news

Overall, I am glad to have had this requirement to read the New York Times on a regular basis. It has required me to stay current on the events of the world rather than so easily falling into the trap of being caught with what is happening only in my sphere of living. Due to my interest in international news and the Middle East in particular I have seen my interest in stories geared toward countries like Syria, Israel, and Iran. I think this is because of the Arab-Israeli class I took last quarter, in addition to the religious studies Islam class I am taking this quarter. These two classes have helped me to realize how fundamental religious differences are in the conflict of the region. And while usually I read article like I did today about an Israeli airstrike on a Syrian convoy outside of Damascus and other articles based on current events of the Middle East, I fear I have missed news surrounding science and technology occurrences. This on-going assignment to keep up-to-date about what is going on in the world through reading the New York Times has also helped me to do a better job of reading The Economist magazine I receive once a month. Keep up on the news has also lead me to have more intellectual conversations with adults and students alike in which I am able to shed some light and personal opinion about the events that are shaping the world we are growing up in. 

Where do you get your news?

Currently, the news I consume comes from a couple of different sources. The New York Times, has been a website that I visit regularly since it was introduced to me as a requirement for WRIT 1122 throughout winter quarter. New York Times has proven to be a reference for daily news viewed online by millions of people every month. I enjoy reading the New York Times because of the ease with which I can browse stories ranging from US and world politics to technology and science or even health and sports. This website allows for any reader to find up-to-date information on any current event around the globe.

Per a suggestion from my Freshman Seminar professor, who taught on the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have also gotten a magazine subscription to The Economist. I appreciate news coming from this source because the articles are relatively short and every week I get a tangible, glossy packet of what is going on, both locally and abroad. With many of the same sections as the New York Times, The Economist also has a liberal bias to most of its stories.

I am happy to be able to read news and current events both on the Internet as well as in print. However, the Internet; Google in particular, is always supplemental to my education and news browsing. Both of these news sources I have come to realize has a fairly liberal point of view, this sway in the facts, figures, and knowledge does not hassle me because I tend to align with those beliefs anyway. However, this realization does make me realize that in order to get a more full view of issues and problems facing our world today, I need to also view news material from a more conservative origin. 

Extended Essay 1 Draft 1

Extended Essay 1

Blogging, Reading, Writing

Paige Jones

WRIT 1122

M/W 4:00-5:50

Millennials:

A Generation of Independent Thinkers

Although it is argued that the literacy rate of the upcoming generation is declining, on average, young people are reading more and more often than all older generations. Certainly, this reading and writing is principally non-academic and does not require intellectual consideration; however, it largely involves both technology and social networking that allows the upcoming generation to be uniquely equipped to adapt to machines and other expertise. Technology now allows us to gather a diverse range of information at a much faster pace. The way we obtain information in this technology age is changing drastically, and therefore, the way we define literacy must change to fit with the current civilization.

            Technological advances and the information age dramatically increase the accessibility of texts and information, allowing youth to have constant access to a wide range of academic and other written works. Technology allows individuals to access texts from anywhere through the Internet. E-books, audio books, and online media are all more extensively available for all people, decreasing the discrepancy in literacy due to financial standing. This is because these online resources are much less expensive than printed books and much more accessible to all people regardless of physical location. This approaching generation can be seen reading more often as well. By communicating through text messages, social networking websites, and email, this young generation reads more words everyday just to communicate with others than any generation preceding them.

Nicholas Carr explains in his article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, that it has become increasingly hard for individuals to engross themselves in a text because it is becoming more common to have a shortened or condensed form of writing that does not require people to entirely engage with a text. Carr describes this, as “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski” (Carr 1). Carr reveals that the Internet is now consuming our lives because we not only use it for research and email, but also for maps, the telephone, newspapers, and even television. The Internet is now making people adapt to the capability of processing information at an even faster rate, increasing productivity. Widespread use of the Internet has caused the way our society operates to shift, and therefore causing a much-needed shift in what literacy means as well. As a society, we must return to the fundament of what literacy really means and how we use reading and writing in our everyday lives. The foundation of literacy is to share ideas and allow individual’s opinions, creative thinking, and intellectual writing to outlive the author’s short life. This has never before been as easy, instant or within reach of an entire population as it is today. Individuals are able to self publish at no cost through blogging, people can share their unique creativity through photos on Pinterest, and individuals can connect with people around the world through Facebook. Internet access and a keyboard are the only things needed for individuals to share with the world their ideas, their beliefs, and their life. This is what literacy is coming to mean in the current technology and information age.

In the article, America the Illiterate, Chris Hedges describes that the illiterate majority of America, “is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés” (Hedges 1). Hedges continues to illustrate that the “political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities” (Hedges 2). He further describes the illiteracy of our nation’s leaders by analyzing the diction that past Presidents and presidential candidates used during presidential debates throughout the last century. The results included George W Bush speaking at a sixth grade level, Kennedy at a tenth grade level, and Lincoln at an eleventh grade level. Showing that the Presidents farther back in our history are considered to have been smarter because of a lack in technology that resulted in people reading and writing more and at a higher level. However, Hedges does not give this data context of whether the grade level that each President spoke at is compared to one time period or the President’s respective time periods and this context drastically changes the interpretation of these results. However, regardless of the concept of brainless men leading our country, the leadership of our nation is adjusting to the current times as well. By using language that all people, not just what voters can comprehend, we are able to have a more engaged youth who are concerned with he broader community. In addition, using online media and advertising, political candidates are able to reach a wider range of constituents. Citizens are now able to overthrow oppressive government regimes using the power of social media to connect with others.

            Nicholas Carr and Chris Hedges both argue that the contemporary technology is inhibiting the current generation of young people to become more intellectual and independent thinkers. However, due to a rapidly advancing proficiency in technology, this generation of young people, known as the Millennials, is completely equipped to transform and adapt to an assortment of jobs when they enter the work force. Once the entire generation enters the job market, the Millennials will be the single most technologically proficient generation employed, and with this, we will be able to uniquely and expertly fill the 35 million jobs that are going to become available within the next five years (Door). On average, Millennials have more friends or connections on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest that allows them to have a wider variety of information and opinions at their fingertips. This is an extreme contrast to any other generation or group of people. “With new technology, Millennials are 2.5 times more likely to be early adopters” of new technology, new ideas, and new procedures (Fromm, Franz).

            After analyzing the writing works of college students across the nation, Andrea Lunsford found, “that the length of student writing has increased nearly three-fold in these 25 years” (Lunsford 2), revealing that the Millennial generation is doing more academic writing than any generation before them. Lunsford also concluded, “that while error patterns have changed in the last twenty-five years, the ratio of errors to number of words has remained stable not just for twenty-five years but for the last 100 years. In short, we found that students today certainly make errors—as all writers do—but that they are making no more errors than previous studies have documented. Different errors, yes—but more errors, no” (Lunsford 2). These errors have shifted because of the technology of spell checkers and auto-correct.

Andrea Lunsford also examines the affects that text messaging, social networking and other informal systems of communication have on academic writing. She observed in her study that, “students did plenty of emailing, and texting; they were online a good part of every day; they joined social networking sites enthusiastically. But rather than leading to a new illiteracy, these activities seemed to help them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities” (Lunsford 1).  She goes on to note that by the time students reach the collegiate level their ability to adapt to different writing styles and tones has become very advanced. If anything, the Millennial generation has become one of a more diverse range of writing styles and abilities caused by the current technology.

Even though there is no clear or detailed definition or standard of literacy, the ability to read and write proficiently has increased and extended to more people because of technology. Technology allows books and academic texts to be more accessible to everyone, in addition to people reading and writing more often everyday to communicate with their peers. This generation of up and coming young people allows for an exclusively competent group of people able to adapt to new tools at a much faster rate.

Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?." Atlantic Monthly. July/August (2008):

n. page. Web. 26 Jan. 2013.

Door, Tamara. "The Journey: Making a Difference as a Leader." Colorado Leadership

Alliance Summit 2013. Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation.

Colorado, Denver. 26 Jan 2013.

Fromm, Jeff, and Andrea Franz. "Four Facts You Need to Know About Millennials."

MarketingProfs. (2012): n. page. Print. <http://www.mpdailyfix.com/four-

facts-you-need-to-know-about-millennials/>.

Hedges, Chris. "America the Illiterate." (2008): n. page. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.

<http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/>.

Lunsford, Andrea. "Our Semi-literate Youth? Not So Fast." n. page. Web. 27 Jan. 2013.

<https://blackboard.du.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id

=_2_1&url=/webapps/blackboard/execute/launcher?

Reflection

Blogging in my eyes...

Writing these blog posts so far has been a valuable insight into the world of subjective news and information sources. I have enjoyed being able to write for a class where I can be much less formal and therefore am able to express my opinion more easily, however, blogging has not yet become a natural concept for me. I have realized that it is easier to exceed the 250 word count requirement when looking critically at an article rather than using a blog as a sort of personal journal. My views of reading on the web have changed from a stricter model of international news sources to the subjective web logs kept by many. Throughout this current information age we are able to acquire data, statistics, facts, and opinions at a much more efficient rate than has ever been possible before. And while people like Nicholas Carr and Chris Hedges argue that the current technology is inhibiting the current generation of young people to become smart, independent thinkers, I would argue just the opposite. When my generation enters the work force, we will be the single most technologically proficient generation employed, and with this, we will be able to uniquely and expertly fill the 35 million jobs that are going to become available within the next five years. But what has surprised me about this process of blogging is that people are now willing to pay to view, not just accredited news suppliers, but also the journaling work of a blogger. 

Literacy in Three Metaphors

Scribner explains that other authors “suggest that literacy is a kind of reality that educators should be able to grasp and explain, or, expressed in more classical terms, that literacy has an ‘essence’ that can be captured through some Aristotelian-like enterprise” (7) But this diverges from Scribner’s point of view. He asks his readers to consider that “Most efforts at definitional determination are based on a conception of literacy as an attribute of individuals; they aim to describe constituents of literacy in terms of individual abilities.” (7) Scribner continues articulates that literacy does not have its roots in the individual but rather a community or society because individuals do not learn to read or write unless it is of cultural importance within the community. He argues that “the single most compelling fact about literacy is that it is a social achievement; individuals in societies without writing systems do not become literate. Literacy is an outcome of cultural transmission.” (7)

I think this contrasts with Carr’s view of literacy because he was writing in a much more personalized way. Carr wrote to come to terms with his own decrease in literacy due to technology. Hedges also looks at literacy from an individual level, by sighting past US Presidents and presidential candidates and their literacy rates.

Scribner however, separated literacy into three different meanings; literacy as adaptation, literacy as power, and literacy as a state of grace. He describes Literacy as Adaptation in terms of “functional literacy”. I see this as literacy that changes at about a third grade level of reading in which individuals adapt from learning how to read, to reading as a way of learning. Scribner then describes Literacy as Power in terms of societal advancement. In order for people in a society to continue their legacy after death, the ability to read and write is necessary. Literacy as a State of Grace is then described by Scribner as the essential need for religious teachings to be preserved.