After having read both Dennis Baron’s The New Technologies of the Word and Jennifer 8 Lee’s I Think, Therefore IM, what do you think their respective opinions would be on texting today? Language is something that people use to communicate with one another, but many people have varying opinions on how we should use it with one another. Is it better to stay as close to the standard form of a language as much as possible when we are writing to one another or is it alright to stray from the rules like we often do when we text? Would either Baron or Lee want us to use Standard English when we text or would they accept how most people text today?
In this assignment, students are asked to put two writers’ ideas into “dialogue” with one another. This assignment could take a variety of forms, such as:
-an essay in which students are asked to apply one writer’s theory to another’s ideas
-a more creative dramatic dialogue in which students are asked to imagine a conversation between two writers on language
-perhaps a letter written in the voice of one writer to another writer focused on how the English language is affecting people today
-Or a standard compare and contrast essay analyzing both readings and incorporating what you believe each one’s stance on the changes in English would be
What is important is that students are asked to represent accurately and sensitively the positions, ideas and words of two different writers and to represent the ways those ideas interrelate.
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