In “Why Johnny Can’t Write,” Merrill Sheils paints a very bleak picture for the development of writing and literacy as a whole. Although I would argue that we aren’t quite as screwed as this article implies, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid about how accurate some parts of this article were. At the end of spring semester last year, one of my roommates asked me to read over one of his papers for a discussion class that he was taking. I remember being shocked by some of the things that I saw in it. Nothing was cited, and half of the essay read like something an 8th grader would have written. When I asked him how he did on his other essays for the class, he told me that his teacher gave him A’s and thought his writing was the best in the class. Granted, my friend is an Engineering Major, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t know how to format an essay properly.
As of recently, there has been a drastic transition in middle and high schools away from English and Writing and into Science and Math. Out of all of my friends from high school and college, I am one of (if not the only) person taking a non-science or math major. These are people who can tell you everything in the entire world about Organic Chemistry, but are terrified if they ever have to put that information into an essay.
On top of all of this, technology isn’t doing us any favors. Due to spell check and text language, teaching spelling and grammar has seemingly become unimportant. It doesn’t matter if you know how to spell a word; it just matters that you can see the little red squiggly mark under the word. (As a matter of fact, that same red squiggly line just popped up when I completely botched the spelling of the word squiggly.) Likewise, texting has relegated “proper English” to second class status. My mom was telling me the other day how her 60 year old boss sent her emails with OMG and LOL in them. If executive partners in law firms feel like it’s okay to say LOL in their correspondence with employees, what’s to stop high school and college students?
I know that this has been less of a question and more of a tirade, and for that I apologize. But I think that actual English is starting to become a thing of the past, which makes me sad. Now for some questions: 1. From your time in middle and high school (or even college for that matter), do you feel like the teaching focus has shifted off of learning how to write onto learning other topics, such as science and math? 2. Do you think the creation of things like spell check has impacted the development of spelling and grammar abilities? If so, is there anything we can do about it? If not, are there any other technologies that have impacted your writing? 3. Do you think that things are as dire as Sheils put them in “Why Johnny Can’t Read?” Does the fact that that essay is from the 70s impact its validity in any way?
In middle and high school I don’t feel there was a shift from writing to other subjects, but more emphasis was placed on the writing required for certain subjects. In a lot of science and math classes that I took, we spent a fair amount of time explaining ideas or a process we used in our own words, using the conventions of scientific or mathematical writing styles. English was never set aside or made to seem less important by the school, but the more scientifically-oriented students did think less of it as a subject or career path, an idea that I encounter in college as well.
As long as proper spelling and grammar are still being taught (and for me, they were part of the curriculum), then spelling and grammar checks don’t seem to be a problem. They aren’t there to replace a person’s knowledge of how to form words and sentences, but to make editing easier. Most people would see their mistakes while reading what they’ve written, even without red and green lines.
I wonder though, how using a computer to type instead of a typewriter changed the way people wrote. Are people less careful about their writing when it’s on a screen and can be altered instantly than they were creating their good draft directly with a machine? Are people less likely to reread and edit their work when it’s created so quickly? Because they don’t have a physical copy of their draft and a record of their mistakes, will they end up trusting that it’s good as is?
On more than one occasion I’ve written, read, and edited my writing before printing out what I thought was the final draft, only to notice while I was handing over the paper that there are still mistakes. I feel like I don’t focus as much when I read words on a screen than when I read them on paper and still miss things. Maybe it’s related to how much of the information I read on a screen is throw away tidbits like Facebook statuses and Tweets.
Sheils work remains relevant because there will always be a difference in how language is used. I don’t think it’s a matter of poor instruction, but of changing societies. No one needs to write like a 19th century bureaucrat to get across a point. Even in that time, writing like that could not be understood by the general public. Simple language does not equate to simple thoughts. I don’t understand Sheil’s objection to people using language that more people understand.
What use is it to that engineering student to write in the style of an English student?
I see your point in regards to an Engineering student writing in the style of an English student, but I would say that there should be a certain level of proficiency present in college level writings. It’s completely possible that my roommate’s teacher wanted him to write like that and it could just as likely be that I over analyzed it due to the years of English writing that I’ve had beaten into my head by different teachers.
Personally, I have always loved English and Writing and hated Science and Math, so there was no real shift for me in middle school to high school education except that I could finally take as few math and science classes as possible. As far as teachers go, I had great English teachers in 8th, 9th, 10th and 12th grade, who all really emphasized how to write strong analytical essays. The 11th grade teacher was awful and I think actually hurt my ability to write, but I was lucky enough to have a strong foundation underneath me, and I fixed it with my teacher senior year.
I think that spell check has definitely had an effect on spelling and grammar, though I don’t think it’s that drastic. I know that Word will automatically correct basic errors, like capitalizing ‘”i”s and turning ‘becuase’ into “because”, and I definitely take this for granted, because it has made me really bad at editing for surface errors. When I read through one of my pieces, my mind automatically corrects or doesn’t catch little things because I assume that Word has already caught them. Still, I am pretty good about catching large spelling errors or sentence construction problems and it definitely has not made me a worse speller.
I don’t think things are as dire as Sheils says at all. At the risk of sounding too harsh, I think that this article is a classic case of an older person who dislikes the younger generation and criticizes them to hide the fact that they are afraid of change, and the eventual shift of power to the younger generation. Additionally, this criticism of the younger generation’s “laziness”, “stupidity”, etc., is a way for the older generation to avoid any responsibility for the fact that any “flaws” the youth have are probably the older generation’s fault. I feel like that exact thing is happening right now with the baby boomers against the Millennial’s, and I am extremely over it.
I can see why you might be concerned. Yes, it is true that not everyone knows how to write the most coherent essay. Of course I believe writing is important for professional settings as well as communication with friends and family. Times are changing. Technology has made it easier to make mistakes and be careless because the computer will fix it for you. However, one of the major concerns in the article about “Johnny” was that students were watching too much TV and it was affecting their speech and writing. Now our concern is that there are too many shortened versions of words. We make acronyms and “abrevs” because it makes life seem easier. Technology is fast and we want to be too. It can be dangerous for writing in general. However, if schools work to keep students interested in all types of writing (literature, math, science, foreign language) and make sure they know the proper language and style for each we might be better off that we think. The article was quite concerned that it would only spiral downward from the test results of the 1970s. However, wouldn’t we technically be part of that downward spiral? How remedial would we be if it truly followed that pattern? Obviously there are always exceptions to every trend, but I would like to think education has made major strides since then. Education has changed a lot since the 1970s; some of these changes may not have been totally beneficial, but for the most part the changes since the ’70s have been for the better. Right?
I think it is important to realize what stereotypes we associate with “non-english” majors. When in high school, people sort of assume if you don’t enjoy English or History classes, you should become a STEM major. While that is true in some cases, it does not represent the whole. With the college selection process becoming more and more competitive, students feel more pressure to individualize themselves. A major source of this individualization is through the college essay. STEM majors are now typically required to accelerate in other fields than just science, math, etc. in order to pursue their careers. Typically in the past STEM majors stuck with STEM coursework, and Humanities stuck with Humanities, but in the developing world of literacy and competition, they have now begun a process of intertwining.