We frequently hear critics argue that U.S. students can’t write well and that there is a “literacy crisis” in the U.S. What is the origin of these discourses? What do they have to do with immigration, national security, and economics? How does the notion that Americans can’t write drive the national push to test writing? Here we explore the history of writing and testing in the U.S., the “science” and technology of testing approaches, and how the rhetoric of assessment impacts the lives of Americans today.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Reading online

I stumbled upon an article pertaining to reading online (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/books/27reading.html?_r=1) and it made me think about a topic I haven't given much thought to previously. Is reading a variety of online materials alone enough for children? With an infinite amount of possible things for kids to read, it would seem as though it is an appropriate replacement, but it this is debatable. Much of the text online is not formatted coherently, the thoughts are scrambled, with poor grammar, spelling and vocabulary. Since people emulate what they are exposed to, is the style of online writing one that children should learn and reproduce in everyday life? Also, people claim to be experts with no merit and provide faulty information to persuade people, it is a dangerous slope for children to be engrossed in online reading as opposed to traditional reading. This being said, there is plenty of information online that is useful and one could learn much from. However, it is highly unlikely that children are looking at these sites. I feel that books, both in the sense of the works themselves as well as the activity of reading a novel, are the best methods to read and should not be replaced by online text.
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