Tchudi - Ch 9 Thoughts

Shannon said...

I believe it is important that students who are at an intellectual level to do so should be taught to accept that there are many faces that each individual presents to the world and themselves. A person can be their own audience or write for a certain aspect of the public. The fact that "writers need audiences" was illustrated by John S. Hart, a significant figure in language arts education of the 19th century and his support of many student publications at his high school. This is true to the point that if a writer does not have an audience, they will cease to produce quality matterial or even stop writing completely.

"Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one." This used to be a statement saying that there was limited access to the machinery needed to publish written communication. But, with our modern computer networks that span the whole world, everyone with a computer at home or even access to a library computer can become a published writer.

But, what does this mean for the quality of work that these new writers offer? The quantity of publications has increased exponentially but the vetting process that winnowed out libelist, biased or just plain bad writing has been circumvented. How do we as consumers of internet as well as traditional print publications choose the wheat among the chafe?

Our role as classroom teachers is to encourage the students to be discerning readers and not believe everything they read and to be thoughtful writers whose products contribute to world dialogue of artists, writers and journalists and their followers.