What Do Chicago and The U.S. Navy Have In Common?
Well besides the massive Naval training base in Chicago, they both abhor chatspeak:
Schoolkids today tap out the cryptic shorthand of text messages and e-mails E123 (Translation: Easy as one, two, three.) But when it comes to actual writing? Grrrr.
So it’s good that the Chicago Public Schools took the first step this week to require eighth-graders to show they can write standard English before they enter high school. In the laser-focus on reading and math under No Child Left Behind, writing has become the forgotten ”third R.” That did not serve students very well.
Good to see another public school system remember the all important third ‘R’, writing, which is actually the second ‘R’ (Reading, writing, and arithmetic). Math is extremely important, but writing even more so. After all, your first job after you graduate is not going to ask you to find out the height of a flag-pole based upon the length of it’s shadow at noon. However, they may very well ask you to write up a report about the flag-pole.
October 1st, 2007 at 7:36 am
[...] THEM. It’s not as if things written in “chatspeak” (I got the Sun-Times link from here) don’t perform communicative functions. It’s also not as if when students write emails, [...]
October 1st, 2007 at 4:37 pm
This is good, but schools aren’t always great at teaching students to write well or to appreciate writing. I agree with what you said about the flag pole…I’m always frustrated at school because I’ve been in advanced math since fifth grade and advanced science since seventh, but not until tenth grade did I get a chance to take an enriched social studies course, and not until now, in eleventh, did I get a chance to take advanced English.
I want to go into English. I like to read and write. Shouldn’t an advanced program with a decent teacher (although I’m beginning to question the existence of “a good English teacher”) have been available years ago?
The course I’m taking now, AP English Language and Composition, isn’t even that good. In fact, it makes me sick to my stomach. I don’t consider it advanced at all.
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