"Digital Media Effects on Conventional Reading and Writing Practices"

The quote that I chose from "Does Digital Media Make Us Bad Writers?" is:

"Writing always changes given the context. It molds itself to the changes.”

  Society says that our writing is not what it use to be and they are right, but is that a bad thing? I have always been one of those people that said to others that our writing has gone down hill and people do not care about spelling, grammar and punctuation. You have the older generations saying that the writing back then was beautiful. Well, that all might be true that the writing was beautiful, but writing done change as we go through time. I remember when I was in grade school the thing to do was use instant message. My friends and I would be on there for hours talking on the computer. Now look, we have text messaging which is pretty much a mobile computer where you can get in touch with anyone at anytime. Writing changes as we advance in technology. I have just come to the realization of this.

The quote I chose from "Literacy Debate: R U Really Reading" is:

"Some literacy experts say that reading itself should be redefined."

With technology booming and always advancing, children are using that technology. Some want to say that instead of reading books children are reading on the Internet and that is why reading and writing skills have gone down and test scores have declined. In my opinion books are great, but reading is reading. An individual doesn't have to learn reading and writing skills just from a book. They can be learned everywhere from a newspaper to the internet. Both books and the internet hold knowledge for individuals to learn from. I chose the above quote because I feel that we as a society need to redefine what reading really is.

                                                        Web Evangelist or Traditionalist
I stand between the Web Evangelist and the Traditionalist. As a Web Evangelist, I think that the use of technology and the internet can endless. We are at a time where we can google anything we want to learn or know about. A tool that we didn't always have these younger generations know how to use like the back of their hand. Reading on the internet I feel is just like reading from a book. We are still taking in knowledge of something, but I also feel like their are important things we can not leave out and that is why I am also a Traditionalist. I feel some skills should not be lost, forgotten, or left behind. Just because we are evolving constantly does not mean we need to leave it behind. For example, I have heard that cursive writing is not a requirement to be taught in school today. That is a type of writing that many documents are written in today such a the Declaration of Independence. If cursive writing is a lost art. Then one day, people will not be able to read apart of our history.

                                                            Visual Metaphor
For a visual metaphor I chose the image below of people playing tug of war with a computer. The meaning I put with this image is that as individuals we have to balance out the use of technology and traditional skills that should not be lost or forgotten. We should not let go of either, but find a happy median.