Flickr: English106

As more schools begin allowing students to bring their own devices and actually use them in class, the debate around the value of “digital writing” — texting, taking notes on mobile devices, tweeting, etc. — is heating up.

Some educators (and even a linguistic expert) believe kids who text are exercising a different, additional muscle when texting, writing, and note-taking — and that skill is actually adding to a student’s growing and changing repertoire.

“Children know that when you’re in school, you do not use texting language,” said linguistics expert Susana Sotillo, an associate professor at Montclair State University in an article in the North Jersey Record. “…No one is destroying the English language; the English language just keeps changing. It’s not a good idea to present change as a negative aspect.”

The ability to switch between formal writing and texting comes naturally to kids, tweets Sunightingale in response to the article above. “Kids know how to code-switch by learning when to text-talk & when to use a grammatical register: language evolution :),” she writes.

Critics of this genre of writing fervently disagree with the premise. “Seriously? As a teacher, I do not accept texting language. Texting is ABSOLUTELY hurting youth’s grammar and spelling. I can’t believe this is even a debate!” writes Cindy Barnes Herron in response to the link to the article on Facebook.

Apart from anecdotal evidence from educators and parents, research of this subject is also contradictory. The New Jersey Record article cites a study showing that kids who “recently sent or received a text message performed considerably worse on a grammar exam than those who had not.” The study included 228 kids age 10-14. This shows that traditional writing is being compromised, according to S. Shyam Sundar, a professor of communications quoted in the article.

But these findings are being contradicted by Sotillo, the proponent of texting, who says going back and forth between texting and traditional language expands kids’ vocabulary.

THE VALUE OF DIGITAL WRITING

Apart from whether texting is degrading or adding value to traditional writing, there are other factors to consider when it comes to the digital writing genre. Jeff Gabrill, a writing professor at Michigan State University, and his colleagues just released a study called Revisualizing Composition: Mapping the Writing Lives of First-Year College Students.

The study, which examined 1,366 students enrolled in first-year writing class, shows that texts on mobile devices, emails, and lecture notes are “three of the most frequently written genres (or types) of writing.” In fact, almost half of the participants — 46 percent — said that “texting was the kind of writing that they performed more than any other.”

Compared to school work, students surveyed said they valued texting (47 percent), writing academic papers (45 percent), and taking lecture notes (43 percent), as the top three most valuable forms of writing. “This was surprising to us,” Gabrill said at a talk at the recent SXSWEdu conference. “The lore for writing and literacy teachers is that students would rather be beaten with a stick than do writing work, but it’s not true.”

But what’s also noteworthy is here that 93 percent of participants said they wrote for personal fulfillment. Why’s this important? “This finding is especially interesting given the fact that participants were solicited through academic avenues (e.g. college email addresses, course websites) and sometimes took the survey in college classrooms, where we might expect them to focus on school-sponsored motivations for writing.”

And that might be the connection between texting and “work” writing — one form might feed and facilitate the other.

“Our students write more than any generation in history,” Gabrill said. “They have to be doing something right.”

Gabrill said some of his colleagues “freak out” when they see students typing on their cell phones. “They want all the attention on them, and they think that many are screwing around,” he said. “I just assume that I’m so engaging that they actually are using their devices to write notes.”

Students’ mobile devices are legitimate platforms for writing, Gabrill argues, and it would behoove schools and teachers to accommodate what changes that might bring on.

“We are in the midst of massive changes in our writing lives,” he said. “Digital writing matters, and our challenge in education is to figure out how it matters in order to ensure that we can be useful to those interested in leveraging it.”

Figment

By Kyle Palmer

When Jacob Lewis was growing up, he liked to write “really terrible Stephen King-like fiction stories.” Looking back on those early works, the former managing editor of The New Yorker said he’s glad they never saw the light of day. But for thousands of teenage writers across the country, Lewis has helped do the exact opposite.

The Web site Figment—founded by Lewis and New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear in 2010—gives young writers a forum to freely publish their work. The site now boasts more than 220,000 registered users and has stocked a library of more than 350,000 individual pieces, ranging from reflective poetry to multi-chapter novellas.

“We really thought at first that it would be more of a social network site,” Lewis said. “But it has been all about project creation. The amount of new content our users produce is amazing.”

Lewis said Figment users post more than 1,000 new original pieces every week, many of them only a few hundred words representing a large range of genres, from heart-tugging romance to dystopian fantasy.

“It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there like they have,” Lewis said. “We knew there was a need for this, but we’ve been surprised at the passion and the ownership our users have shown.”

Similar to Facebook, Figment users—most of whom are between 13 and 24 years old—create a profile and upload their work, giving it a title and picking from a large selection of stock images to use as cover art. Other users can read the pieces online and leave comments and provide feedback.

Not all pieces are read widely, but some works, like Diamonds in the Rough by a user from Wisconsin who goes by the screen name Fish Fingers, have received 130 comments and more than 200 “Hearts” (Figments’ version of Facebook’s Like button).

“Wow! This [story] is beautifully sad!” one user commented about Fish Finger’s work.

“Your similes are impeccably accurate,” wrote another.

“The one negative thing I’d say is that I think it would’ve been better if you had let people figure out the moral for themselves then say what it is at the end of the story,” posted another user.

Dana Goodyear, who has written for The New Yorker and teaches literary nonfiction at USC, said this kind of genuine feedback is common on Figment.

“What’s most exciting is the intensity of the usage,” she said. “These writers are getting a really deep experience receiving this feedback. Having an audience is so crucial to support young writers.”

Goodyear said Figment is beginning to explore more uses for educators, too. The site already has a “Groups” function, which can allow teachers to set up online workshops for their classes.

Meenoo Rami, a National Board certified English teacher in Philadelphia who hosts the teacher blog #engchat, said Figment is the “perfect platform” for her students.

“It’s important for students to know that their work is viewed by more than just their teacher. For my students, the idea that a larger audience is being exposed to their work is important to them,” Rami said. “This gives them an authentic reason to write.”

Goodyear said she and the other Figment staffers hope to continue evolving the site. She said they want to work on adding “in-text editing” features so that users can change their work in real time online.

She also said Figment will continue to bring in professional writers and published authors for online Q&A sessions, live chats, and blog posts, to connect them to Figment’s aspiring teenage writers.

One Figment user, Blake Nelson, has already received an offer for a book deal for the poetry he posted to the site. Figment also hosts regular contests in different genres in order to feature fresh young talent.

Yet, Lewis said Figment should remain at its heart a place for teens to express themselves.

“Our mission is to not take amateur writers and make them pros,” he said. “We don’t want to set up a hierarchy. We just want these young writers to see how empowering it is to be able to share your ideas.”