Thanks for letting me take over today. I am excited about being here. This makes for a nice break from teaching, writing and ummm…well teaching and writing, oh…and teaching writing. I teach high school English and today they are writing an in-class essay. Which for the past few days I have had to teach how to do, this always amazes me.
As a Freshman English teacher I am always floored by how little writing experience the students have. Both formal and creative. I recently had them plot a murder. We were reading “The Most Dangerous Game” and in order to get them up for the General and Rainsford I thought they should do something intriguing themselves. This proved to be an almost impossible task for them. I worked hard to pull details from them, to simply get them to be creative. Honestly, they couldn’t do it. I was so surprised. The longest story I got was ¾ of a page, hand written. Some turned in single sentences.
It made me sad to think that the creativity had been driven out of them. Even more astonishing perhaps was their use (or lack) of grammar and spelling. I got text speak. I was appalled that they would even think this was okay to turn in. Even stepping back for a moment and thinking about what I know of teenagers (having 2 of my own) I couldn’t believe that they would feel it was okay to turn in a written paper to a teacher in text speak. This means that in my teaching of how to write an in-class essay I have had to include the lack of text speak. This actually concerned some of them because they don’t know how to spell out of text speak.
Explaining to students that “laugh out loud”, unless they were using it to describe how someone was doing the laughing, or that one character made another character “laugh out loud”, was unacceptable proved to be time-consuming and frustrating. I am just back in the classroom after being an administrator for 5 ½ years, so this was a new road.
With that said, I am now more appreciative of the voices in my own head clamoring to be heard. I am currently working on the finishing ½ of a story that is part of a collection called “Lost to the Night”. My story, “Prince of Shadows” is based off of Brian Froud’s oracle cards. Two of the cards spoke to me in a different way and so I am telling their story.
“Lost to the Night” Volume 1 is out now with XOXO Publishing. You can find it at:
You can find me at:
http://brigitsjournals.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/brigitaine
http://www.twitter.com/brigitsworld
I also have the following books/stories out:
“Red’s Return” Torrents Talents 1
“Cassie’s Awakening” Torrents Talents 2
“Kraig’s Kat” Torrents Talents 3
“Justice for Leanne”
Just Another Paranormal Halloween Anthology
Just Another Paranormal Christmas Anthology
Halloween Triad
I think this is very timely, Brigit. One of the things I’m noticing more and more as an author is the lack of concern shown to things I took for granted in my school years. Grammar these days is appalling, and it does make you wonder how literate the next generation of writers will be if something as simple as an essay can present such a challenge. I realize we live in an electronic age, but there is a lot to be said for the old ways of teaching from books, and turning off the phones, computers, and other instruments that have ruined the thinking process for so many young people. Most of them can’t read aloud, more still can’t write an articulate sentence to save their lives, and spelling is an alien concept. A very sad state of affairs, truly.
It is…and reading I have discovered is just another part to it. We all know that you can’t write well if you can’t read, unfortunately these kids don’t seem to be able to read either. I find myself sounding out the simplest of words for them and helping them learn how to decode, something they should have been taught much younger than 14.