Article Worth Reading: Back to the Future of Writing

In past articles, I have wondered what the future will hold for the editorial quality of books as newer generations of college graduates takeover editorial functions. In several past articles, I have lamented about what appears to be a lack of skill in some of the younger in-house editors with whom some editors work.

Recently, this problem — in the more general sense of students who can’t write an expository essay — was discussed in The Atlantic. The magazine article, written by Peg Tyre, explores one failing high school’s (New Dorp on Staten Island, NY) response to this problem. The article, “The Writing Revolution” (October 2012 issue of The Atlantic) is almost a must read for anyone who wonders whether there is hope for future literacy. To quote but one paragraph of the article:

Her [Deirdre DeAngelis, the school’s principal] decision in 2008 to focus on how teachers supported writing inside each classroom was not popular. “Most teachers,” said Nell Scharff, an instructional expert DeAngelis hired, “entered into the process with a strongly negative attitude.” They were doing their job, they told her hotly. New Dorp students were simply not smart enough to write at the high-school level. You just had to listen to the way the students talked, one teacher pointed out—they rarely communicated in full sentences, much less expressed complex thoughts. “It was my view that these kids didn’t want to engage their brains,” Fran Simmons, who teaches freshman English, told me. “They were lazy.”

This is an article that is definitely worth reading.

The Writing Revolution by Peg Tyre