The once dreaded five paragraph essay

There was a time not too long ago when English teachers debated about the use of and devotion to the five paragraph essay as being too structured and too stifling in the creative process of writing. I suspect than many of us who demonized that genre would now see it as the promised land in our English class if we look at current trends. When students are limited to 128 characters on their respective hand held app, asking them to generate a five paragraph essay has become a herculean task. In addition, text spelling is becoming the norm and trying to explain the idea of a more formal spelling eludes our young scholars as they don't comprehend the difference between what they write and what we expect as formal writing in an English class. There was a time when our scholars knew that they had different vocabularies and writing styles. That is not so anymore. Another negative by-product is our scholars inability to spend more than a nano reading. A short story has become a novel. Seeing more than 100 words on a computer screen exhausts our weary scholars who need to scurry away to recharge while BBMing their friends of the torture they are undergoing in English class. Oh and they can't type. They are all thumbs.

Today I read "Effective Use of Digital Tools Seen Lacking in Most Tech-Rich Schools" in Education Week. I have always advocated this notion and it was lovely to see Larry Cuban, now emeritus, quoted. He and I used to have wonderful conversations in the 90's about tech use. We always took opposite sides. He missed the point then and still does. Schools of Education have failed to do their part in preparing future teachers in the art of using technology in their classes. If other industries and businesses can use technology in their daily operation then why has education lagged so far behind the curve? We don't use technology in schools because we filter and ban their use and we don't teach our teachers at any level how to use the technology. NYC doesn't have a Department of Technology any more nor is there any technology leadership in NYC schools. Schools are a No Technology zone.


Another sad trend has been represented well on a recent conversation on a NWP technology list which is gaga over programs like Glogster and other programs that have the students generating posters. Posters in English and writing classes. What are you kidding me? Talk about the "dumbing" down of our education. This is why our students can't read or write more than 128 characters. Teachers are excited about a poster program, not a writing tool, not about writing essays. Blogs have been shelved as being too hard or too much work I hear. Now we should be excited about not just a poste, but a group created poster from our English scholars. This from the National Writing Project, Yikes!

I'm still an advocate for the creation of webpages that provide a proper forum for essay writing, creative writing, and publishing. I still herald the advancement of technology in schools as a tool that replaces the book and paper that we used yesterday and the limited publishing of literary magazines replaced with webpages for every scholar to use to express hir opinions on matters of import, to explain hir knowledge of things, and to create hir own work. All of this is published and is presented and has replaced the atoms publishing medium by the digitally publishing medium. The trend I am seeing is taking this technology and letting it bastardize our work as teachers because teachers fail to get it. In some cases it is their fault because they accept the 128 character limit and they have not been taught in our Schools of Ed how to use this technology. The technology innovators are those who learned on their own and at their own expense and have had to suffer the insults and ignorance of colleagues and supervisors who don't understand technology in the classroom. When it comes to the lack of technology use in schools, teachers may deserve the disparaging words about them. Would we accept a non technology oriented professional in any other industry?

Does this image represent teachers' evolution in a technology age?