The main thing that I took away from this reading was that while I personally think that it is a great idea to include other forms of texts in the classroom we are adding another important lesson that children need to be taught. There is a difference in what will work for a book and what will work for other medians when it comes to texts. We already know this is the case, as students and teachers, when dealing with novels, biographies, news articles and business letters; but, what about the less conventional medians such as the text message and advert? Each genre comes with its own guidelines, and I am not sure if it is a good thing to teach all of the rules in the classroom and different guidelines, let the kids do what they want and introduce rules gradually, or just stick to the conventional for writing and use alternatives for reading. All suggestions have possibilities, and there are many more options as well.
The one problem is that children may try to use text speak when writing a research paper or something like that. So, it is important to teach different styles and why different styles are used in different genres.
"The one problem is that children may try to use text speak when writing a research paper or something like that."
ReplyDeleteI had that exact issue last year with a student, she could not understand why she had to spell the word "are" when writing a paragraph because when she used text she simply used "R." You are right on track when you state that it is important to teach students when it is appropriate to use which styles of writing.