When I think of academic writing, I think of one dreaded assignment: the essay. Quite literally the bane of my existence, the essay has drilled holes into my ever loving soul. I'm also beginning to see that the essay, to the advanced people of society, may partially be relegated to status of "dinosaur of the past" soon: extinct.
Let me explain. Already, in the few weeks I've taken this class, I'm beginning to think that conventional writing is going the way of the dodo. I mean, look at this assignment. It's not a classic, 5 paragraph essay. It's well thought out response (read: rant) in a blog, an unconventional electronic journal. Even in my weather classes, everything we do is web based: model data gathering and maintaining a website are key things we learn. My point is this: in every facet of our lives, we are dealing with new electronic media that wasn't around 10 years ago. If you want to be on the cutting edge, and excel in the many professions out there in that big, tough world of ours, you need to know the latest ways of communicating EFFICIENTLY.
Efficiency is key. In today's culture, many people in society cannot communicate efficiently. Whether it be poor grammar, poor spelling, poor vocabulary, or just being illiterate in general, so many in today's world do not excel in life. The key is not only teaching the new forms of communication, but fixing the problems with ESSENTIALS of communication. You know, like the difference between "its" and "it's." (Oh, it burns me up when people don't get that one.)
So, here's my solution to the proposed question. First, clean up the teaching plans of high school. Make grammar essential to passing. Then, when it comes to modes of conveying words, teach the old modes of communication, such as the essay. While the essay is still used in the science community, today's media is ruled by the blog and the website. Teach HTML and such in college, maintain a website, keep a blog, network with others. Admit it to yourself, the only people that make it FAR in life are college graduates, so teach advanced topics such as these in college, where only the advanced students learn them. Teach basics earlier, not in college. Today, I think to much time is dedicated in college to the basics... some of which are never fixed.
So there it is: the essay, my nemesis, is now relegated to a relic; it is now a basic idea taught to high school students to prepare them for today's world of high technology. We use the essay basics in all writing that we do, but lord know I never want to write an ACTUAL essay ever again.
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3 comments:
What's really so different about the essay from a blog post? There is the form, certainly: you are much more tied down with an essay format. I can see how that would be a bit of a pain. But be straight with me: do you hate the essay because of the binding format, or because you're expected to put in a lot more time researching and writing it that you are for a blog post?
I agree with Erin.
Let's explore your blog post, as you chose to do. It was very well reasoned out, yes. The post presents a clear argument and supports it, of course.
Yet, as Erin also pointed out, there is a distinction to be made, and I see it as the reality that blog posts, for the most part, do not require research. This is not to say that posts can't inform us, but, they are limited in this capacity. Without research, posts because informers of opinion, not scholarly presentations, unfortunately.
So I would say, on top of making grammar a requisite for advancement (which I agree with), proper research skills should be mandated. New theories or conclusions are always on the back on what has been learned previously; research is key. Throwing kids or adults into a research setting without the proper backing, well that's unfair.
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