Redefining Writing for the 21st Century Classroom

There's no question that pen & paper are the 20th-century version of the horse & buggy, while computers represent the car, which is so fast, wildly efficient, and capable of taking us places we never dreamed possible. Within the English classroom, the tug between these two traditions and the impact it's having on craft is being played out on sites like Getting Smart . Susan Davis, a veteran English teacher, writes a compelling argument in "Teaching Authentic Writing in a Socially Mediated World" on what it means to teach writing in a meaningful way to today's students. Forget the 5-paragraph essay and deconstructing poems, it's time to blog, write photo captions, do digital stories. It's time to teach using the medium that students use outside the classroom. Unsurprisingly, this spawned a flurry of comments from readers, most of whom are teachers. What's intriguing are the posts that argue against what she's advocating---that the 5-paragraph essay enables students to develop logical arguments, which is a skill not developed through Facebook posts. Davis responds well to her critics, furthering adding to a much needed dialogue and debate on what belongs in the English classroom and how it can be adapted to the environment we all inhabit. It's the adaptation, in my view, that is critical because students will "engage" when they think the materials are relevant to their lives, to their world. They're wired, as we all are, to learn, to respond, and to engage when something resonates with them. The issue isn't "throw out the old, bring in the new" but rather package the content, i.e. the instruction, in a way that's appealing and substantive enough that it results in actual learning. None of us learn well when we're bored by the presentation or feel the method is woefully outdated.