A New Literacy?

School begins in our household today – at least for our almost 17 year-old. He begins his junior year at the same high school where his three older siblings graduated from. The Adams family is on the 15th consecutive year at North Mecklenburg High; there are lots of stories there for another time, but here’s one a lot of people are talking about around the world: today’s kids can’t write, and technology is to blame.

Wired magazine’s Clive Thompson has a great article in the September issue entitled “The New Literacy.” His main point: it’s not that today’s students can’t write. It’s that they’re doing it in different places and in different ways. It's a great read - you ought to check out the whole story.

A massive project called the Stanford Study of Writing by Andrea Lunsford, a professor at Stanford University, collected 14,672 student writing samples – everything from in-class assignments, formal essays, and journal entries to emails, blog posts, and chat sessions. Her conclusion: “I think we’re in the midst of a literary revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization.” For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s revising it – and pushing our literacy in bold new directions.

The study found that 38% of writing took place outside the classroom - life writing, as Lunford calls it. It's a huge paradigm shift - before the Internet came along, most Americans never write anything that wasn't a school assignment.

The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago. The brevity of texting and status updating teaches young people to deploy haiku-like concision.

Most of us think of writing as either good or bad. What today's young people know is that knowing who you're writing for and why you're writing might be the most crucial factor of all.

Stay tuned.

Write to Retain

If I didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen.

That’s a quote from Cathy Ryan, a character in Tom Clancy’s thriller series of books. Almost a toss away line at the time, it turns out to be a major turning point of the whole book. It’s also a guide that I have adapted and modified for my own use.

When I am reading (see yesterday’s post), I often take notes of the highlights of the book or magazine article or page view. I have found that the act of writing down key points helps lock them away in my memory. I may not be able to remember all of the point, but it helps to recall just enough to look it up later.

I “write” in several ways:

• For several key themes that I follow, I have a separate journal for each one, allowing an ongoing concentration of knowledge on that subject
• I also keep a notebook with me when I travel, jotting down quotes, book titles, or observations for later follow-up
• For business purposes, there are major themes that I am continually gathering information about. I document these electronically, and use them to develop white papers, presentations, or “leave behinds” for clients
• I blog daily here, and weekly for Church Solutions magazine. This has been an important part of my development process, so I want to spend some more time on blogging.

My entry into the blogging world came last year, at the encouragement of Church Solutions editor Karen Butler. Her magazine and the National Association of Church Design Builders (NACDB) are partners in the Church Solutions Conference and Expo as well as several other events. During one of those events, the Certified Church Consultant training course, I was speaking on the subject of reading and journaling, and she suggested that I move to the next natural step in that progression, blogging.

I certainly don’t consider myself knowledgeable in this area, so I turn to someone who is: Mark Batterson, pastor of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., and a prominent voice in the church blogging world. Here are some key points he made recently about blogging; to read his blog, go here.


Blogging came pretty naturally to me because I've always kept a journal. But over the years I've learned a few do's and don'ts. Here are ten of them. I view them as my personal guidelines for blogging.

1) Stay Positive-Life is too short and the Kingdom Cause is too important for the sideways energy of negativity!

2) Include Hyperlinks-It brings people together in amazing ways.

3) Keep it Short and Sweet-It's a blog not a book!

4) Don't let commentors hijack your blog-I do think it's healthy to engage in respectful debate. But don't let it cross the line.

5) Tell Your Wife About It Before You Blog About It-If your family has to read your blog to know what is going on in your life something is wrong!

6) If You Wouldn't Say it to Their Face Don't Blog It-Again, I think we need civility and respect.

7) Know Your Audience-Would you blog if no one read it? I think that's a good litmus test. Obviously, if you are blogging you are doing it so people can read it. But I primarily blog for myself--it's my journal. It's the way I keep track of what God is doing in my life.

8) Be Yourself-A blog ought to be as unique as you are.

9) Find Your Rhythm-Part of blogging is finding a way for it to fit your lifestyle. I think it's critical that you be consistent.

10) Stay Positive-I know. I know. I listed it twice!

In addition to being a prolific blogger, Batterson also writes books – to the tune of one per year. Even though you and I may not write a book, I found Batterson’s thoughts on writing a book to be an appropriate close to today’s post:

Writing a book is baring your soul. You feel intellectually and spiritually vulnerable. Writing forces you to come to terms with who you are and who you aren't. Unfortunately, many authors hide behind their words. You don't feel like you know them any better at the end of the book than you did at the beginning. I try to write as if I'm having a conversation with someone over coffee. Keep it real. Keep it personal. Don't just share your thoughts. Share your life.

What are you writing?