Writing in the 21st Century

In “Writing in the 21^st Century”, Yancey says, “We thus face three challenges that are also opportunities: developing new models of writing; designing a new curriculum supporting those models; and creating models for teaching that curriculum.” Yancey talks about how people wrote in spite of what different cultures that thought of writing as not important.  She gives the examples of how women or people of color were not allowed to write and how young children were not able to write until they were older.  Yancey’s main argument is to for students to become better writers and to become the next generation writers. Reading has become known as something that can be done with others.  It can be intimate.  Writing has become know as something that is not easy.  This is true in my life as well.  Sitting back and reading a good book is enjoyable, but writing is something I do not enjoy doing.  In the 21^st century we have a new era of literacy. Yancey says this new Age of Composition is, “a period where composers become composers not through direct and formal instruction alone (if at all), but rather through what we might call an extracurricular social co-apprenticeship.” This brings about the idea once again that in the 21^st century literacy is defined through technology.

Brave New World

Thompson talks about social media and our social interactions with each other.  He gives examples of how on Facebook/ Twitter we are able to see what our friends are doing, if they are sick, how work is going, etc.  For example when Zuckerberg first made the News Feed, people were shocked of how much was broadcasted to everyone.  At first people did not like the News Feed, but over time people came to realize it was a great way to connect with their friends.  The article defines “ambient awareness” as incessant online contact.  The example they give of ambient awareness is when the News Feed first came out people didn’t think they wanted to constantly be updated on their other friends lives, but once they actually experienced this constant update, they quickly became interested in what was going on.  When Thompson talks about social media updates being “skimmable” this relates to what we have been talking about in class of how people are constantly skimming information opposed to reading in depth.  Literacy is defined in this article through social media and our interactions with others.

Cognitive Surplus

In this article, Shirky talks about a cognitive surplus.  Cognitive surplus is the free time people have.  Shirky talks about how people waste this time by just watching television or going on the Internet.  Shirky does not believe this is bad, he just thinks we need to take advantage of this cognitive surplus.  This article gives us a new way to look at cognitive surplus and how to use it to benefit our society and ourselves.  He wants us to use television and the Internet to make an impact on others.  At the end of this article Shirky leaves us with the question, “If we carve out a little bit of the cognitive surplus and deploy it here, could we make a good thing happen?” According to Shirky he believes the answer is yes.