Washington Post
February 17, 2008
Author:Howard Gardner
While this article presented a clear argument, it showed both sides of the situation, which I appreciated. It stated that one section of the population believes that literacy is going down the drain because of the decreased leisure reading,and student's declining scores on standardized tests. He then goes on to state that while this may be true, the Internet has opened a whole new area of possiblilities for literacy. He felt that literature has evolved over thousands of years, from cave paintings to scrolls and finally to the printing press. The Internet to him is just another form of literature, with a much broader scope and capable of reaching a larger number of people. While I found his view interesting and he made many valid points, I still think that exposing people to literature to the past is very important in education whether it be via the Internet or in a book.
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3 comments:
I agree I think literature of the past is very important. Many of our laws and customs today come from what someone had to say hundreds of years ago. I do appreciate the credit he gave to the internet. It seems like high school teachers are sent out into the work field to curse and fight the evil monster called the internet. I agree that there is a lot to offer on the internet.
I like how the author showed both sides of this issue. I do agree that literature has changed over the years. I think the best mix of literature would be some of the old literature and some of the new literature. I know at my high school we had summer reading, which made us read the required books; yet, we still got on the internet during the summer and read there too. I think the use school reading programs is an effective tool for this.
Literature is still very important whether we want to read or not. I always wondered why we had to read poems and plays in English class, but now I realize how that opens your eyes to written words and how the language has evolved. I think the internet is a great tool for learning and getting information fast, but I don't think people are using it for literature's purpose. Most people our age only go on facebook or myspace.
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