Grammar in the Digital Age | Teen Ink

Grammar in the Digital Age

March 2, 2016
By StanleyLigon SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
StanleyLigon SILVER, Brooklyn, New York
9 articles 0 photos 0 comments

“Grammar in the Digital Age” provided the insight I needed just to prove to how naive we are on the difference between how much grammar we think elementary students are learning and how much they aren't. I've noticed it too; for a long time now, in fact. There was a day where I was with my cousins and my sister observing a hackathon, and because we were bored, I suggested that we did a writing competition. My cousins opposed my request, half because they were lazy, and half because I was known in the family for being one of the best writers. After some gentle persuasion and reassurance that it would be a swift loss, they reluctantly agreed. Since my cousin claimed that she typed faster, I let her go first. We allotted ourselves to have 30 minutes to build on the following hook, “ ‘I know what you've been doing,’ said the man on the phone.”  By the time she was done, an hour had passed and all she had was two paragraphs. She was embarrassed to show her works of art to me, and when I saw it, I couldn't help but noticed that there was room for improvement. There was little to no punctuation, and almost every sentence was a run-on. It wasn't as bad as I may be expressing it, and for a sixth grader, it was well written. The most noticable flaw in her story, however, was the amount of red lines under conjoined words or mispelled words. Nevertheless, I was proud of how far she came since she was much younger, and quite frankly, It's not her fault that she writes this way. I completely agree with you. It doesn't mean that she is "less intelligent." Many adults have yet to understand that a new age is upon us- a digital age, that is- and things are not the same as they used to be. For example, with all this new technology, It's hard to catch up and retain the information with the help of multiple screens. Also, the Common Core in our schools in NYC makes it harder for the students, not easier. It involves new methods that were not introduced to our parents and grandparents. This has to be fixed before it's too late.



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