Linda says, “My vision is to move beyond literacy to the restoration of the spoken word in all its splendor and to introduce children to the power and magic of creative expression. With texting and tweeting, language and the use of real words is eroding the fabric of communication. I want my books to encourage articulate expression and a love of language and real communication between parents and their children.”
Several times I’ve addressed a piece of this problem from different angles. I’d like to tackle it head on today; not as a lecture, but as an exploration of problems and possible solutions.
Watching media offerings for children today has changed drastically from fifty years ago. PBS has done its part to put education, reading, thinking and learning to the forefront of early TV viewing for children. It’s the other viewing choices that rattle some parents and teachers.
For never doubt it, the current influence on modern speech and learning expectations has shifted and not in a good way. If you have doubts, stand/sit in any mall anywhere and simply listen to the conversations of those around you. While you’re there, watch the behaviors, too.
Language lies at the core of society in every aspect. When individuals are encouraged to reduce the length of communications to a few handfuls of characters to say something that might take 100 words verbally, they are being encouraged to create a type of written sign language; a sign language made up of smilies, animates, anagrams, and sprinkled with individual letters that create shorthand.
This shorthand doesn’t stop with twitter. Kids are using this shorthand verbally, too, among themselves. Oh, I know. When I was a kid, we had pig Latin. Much later we went through the “Valley” phase, and so on. Each generation has its own form of communications. You say “It’s always been that way.” You’re right. It has.
Until now, that is. This is how I see it, and I think it’s what Linda was alluding to. With current technology, we communicate more than ever before in history and perhaps saying less of value. We’re also doing it in a shorter form of written communications that crosses generational lines, not just here, but globally. What affects us and our generations also affects those elsewhere.
However, for the first time, according to recent reports filed by various government and professional agencies, the U.S. has fallen behind in education (check our literacy rates against some third world countries). Our reading, writing, and other skills have diminished, not because our children are no longer bright and inquisitive, but because our educational system is broken.
I keep hearing about budgets being slashed. Yeah, and? That’s my reaction. When I see the salaries and bonuses of some districts’ sports programs, I want to scream. I’ll not go into that here other than to say that for many schools, legitimate needs, like learning materials, get cut so that sports is protected. Music and arts programs get sliced out of the academic pie because they show no demonstrative benefit and are a drain on the district’s resources. I’ve actually heard that one used in person.
No one bothers to mention that kids in those programs have smaller drop-out rates, are better students, better citizens, continue on to college, etc. down the line. And that’s only one example.
So, what, you’re asking, are the solutions? Many solutions begin with the involvement of the communities surrounding the schools. When citizens are more interested in the classroom than the athletic field, good things happen that cost the schools nearly nothing. Why don’t local busi
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By: Kristi Holl,
on 11/13/2009
Blog: Writers First Aid (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: mentors, creativity, motivation, NaNoWriMo, Add a tag
I’m about 1,000 words behind where I wanted to be on my NaNo project. The first week was pretty easy, and I expect the final week won’t be bad either.
But the MIDDLE!
Pep Talk
A couple of times per week, wonderful cheerleader writers send pep talk emails to keep the flagging NaNoWriMo participants cheered up and cheered on. I’m going to share one from this week written by Maureen Johnson. It will apply to any writer. It’s about getting through the desolate middle of a writing project, after your initial enthusiasm has worn off, but before you’re heading into the home stretch with built-up momentum.
You’re in a wasteland called the middle. Here’s…
The Letter from Maureen
Dear writer,
I have a very good friend who is Australian. I’ve never been to Australia, so she is constantly selling me on the merits of her homeland and setting me straight on things. For example, I have always wanted hold a koala. She informs me that koalas smell and spread disease. What I want instead, she informs me, are flying foxes, sugar bananas, rainbow lorikeets, mangosteens, and Sydney sunrises.
One thing that always impresses me in her descriptions is just how large Australia is-and how empty in the middle. Australia is comparable in size to the continental United States, but almost everyone lives on the coast. So it would be like having Los Angles, and then New York, with almost nothing in between. Nothing except for monsters, that is. Because almost everything that lives out there in the middle of nowhere can kill you. 97% of the snakes in Australia are poisonous. The spiders are the size of washing machines, but it’s the tiny ones you have to watch for. It’s all teeth and venom out there. So just put a huge “here be dragons” in the middle of your mental map and you’ll have a pretty good picture of Australia. The cities are said to be wonderful-paradises of culture and wine and song. It’s just that middle 2,000 miles that you have to watch out for.
Perhaps this rings a bell right about now, smack in the middle of NaNoWriMo?
Those first few days with your idea… oh, how wonderful they are! How sweetly it goes! And you wander on, past the city limits, into the bush. The signposts disappear, and the creatures come out. You have wandered into The Middle. Thing is, writers spend something like 97% of their time in The Middle. Once you leave those first pages, those first days… you wander into strange land and you stay there for a long, long time.
It took me a little while, probably a few years of full-time writing, to fully accept that that middle bit was where I was going to be spending pretty much all of my time. This is the thing they don’t tell you. When you see portrayals of writers on television or in movies, what are they normally doing? They’re sipping coffee or cocktails, or jetting around to signings, or solving murders for fun. Lies! I mean, these things do happen, but those are the coastal bits.
Most of the time we are deep inland-sitting at home, or
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By: BookEnds, LLC,
on 5/21/2008
Blog: BookEnds, LLC - A Literary Agency (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: critiques, mentors, Add a tag
I thought this was a really interesting question and one I suspect my readers can answer better than I can. . . .
I need a definition of "What is a Writing Mentor." I write Romance, Mystery, and Suspense and have had a critique partner and mentor for the past 4 years. I belong to RWA, and my local chapter wants to give the mentor of the year award, but I need to compile a definition of a writing mentor. Can you help me?
Mentors are such wonderful and amazing people, and let me congratulate you for having found someone who you obviously have been lucky to find. I really don’t think I’d be the person I am today or have the success I have without the many mentors who helped guide me to this place. From teachers who taught me the power of a book to editors who taught me how to recognize good writing, edit, and negotiate, and to fellow agents who took time out of their busy schedules to answer any questions I had, or still have.
I imagine what you’re looking for is a definition that can be used to describe what mentors are for this particular award. I’ll leave it up to the wordsmiths to correct me, but in my mind I think a mentor is someone who takes the time to teach new writers about the craft of writing and the business of publishing. A mentor is someone who helps others succeed in an area where she has already found success.
But what about the readers? Do you have a better definition of a writing mentor? And what about mentors you’ve had? Let’s take a moment to honor them here by telling a little about those people who gave selflessly of their time so that you could all learn about writing and what they did for you.
Jessica
By: Sally Murphy,
on 11/29/2007
Blog: Scribblings (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: sally murphy, readers eden, Baby Mosnter, rodger francis, writers exchange, sally murphy, readers eden, Baby Mosnter, rodger francis, writers exchange, Add a tag
I’m having a thoroughly chaotic couple of weeks, mostly not writing related. School finishes in two weeks, and I’m in the midst of writing reports, rehearsing for three presentation night items, ferrying the Murphlets to various events, attending end of year functions and so on. I counted eight functions I need to attend in the next two weeks – more than I’ve been to in the whole year to date.
Well said!