"The New Literacy" by Clive Thompson

In Clive Thompson’s article titled “The New Literacy” he begins by stating how new technology has replaced the old styles of writing. He then speaks about Andrea Lunsford’s “Stanford’s Study of Writing.” Andrea Lunsford is a professor of writing and rhetoric and Stanford University. She conducted a study on student writing, where she collected thousands of samples of student writing from 2001-2006. The writing samples consisted of all different types of writing, from class essays to online chats. She came to the realization that “technology isn’t killing our ability to write, it’s reviving it.” She noticed that young people today write much more than those of older generations. Before the internet became so popular, people would mainly only write school assignments; nothing else. Lunsford found that nowadays 38% of student writing takes place outside of the classroom, what she called “life writing.” She came to the conclusion that a difference can lie in a writer’s audience. On the internet, a writer has an audience, be it a blog or some kind of chat. This gives the writer a sense of what is considered “good writing.” They understand “good writing” as something that has an effect on the world. She realized that even if the topic is about movies or something not all that intelligent, writing is about getting one’s point across and persuading others. When it comes to essays and class assignments, students are less enthusiastic because the only audience is their professor and the only purpose in their writing is to get a good grade. Therefore, the audience and reason for your writing makes all the difference.
I agree with this concept. I find that if I am writing something to a friend or something to express my opinion to others, I care more about it and enjoy it more, as opposed to an assignment whose content I will probably forget within a few months. If we didn’t have the concept of “life writing” we would hardly ever express our opinions to the general public.

Questions:
1. While technology may be reviving our ability to write, isn’t it a different type of writing?
2. Why do schools focus so much on essay writing if “good writing” is something that has an effect on the world? How can essay writing help in affecting the world?
3. Schools should start analyzing and grading writings that actually matter, for example written student interactions and debates; so why do that focus so much on essays on books and the like?