How Much Writing Are Kids Actually Doing?

As a teacher, I find that most people expect schooling to be the same for youth today as it was for them when they went to school.  This can be both positive and negative.  Someone who had a great schooling experience typically expects their kid to have the same.  On the other hand, someone who had a rough schooling experience will assume that nothing has changed, and it will always be a disappointment.  People often assume that something is wrong if it is done differently at school.

People come up to me with statements like, "Don't you think it is crazy that kids today don't know how to [insert topic here]."  One of my closest friends recently asked me why kids today don't know how to spell.  I just looked at him and said, "Kids today can spell."  He replied, "Well, they do so much awful texting that they must not be able to spell."  Unfortunately, people assume that since students use different tools that they are doing it wrong.  My students can, in fact, spell quite well.  Why?  Because they are still taught how to spell through their writing, and they use modern tools to help them spell and learn spelling patterns.

I find that assumptions about students today, especially middle schoolers, are especially unfair.  When reading Because Digital Writing Matters by Danielle Devos, Elyse Eldman-Aadahl, and Troy Hicks, they posed a question, "How much writing do kids actually do?"  The answer is, a lot.  People assume that since kids are writing differently that it is not "real" writing.  However, students are writing all the time, and a lot more than I did as a student.  When I was a kid, I would write at school and maybe at home if I had homework.  I wrote a limited amount of emails, and I started instant messaging in my high school/college years with AIM.  I used a phone to talk with friends.  I did not communicate a lot through the written word.  I really only wrote when I was forced.

Compare that with now.  Students are writing to each other at rapid rates.  Fingers literally fly over the phone.  They will send one hundred messages to a friend in one evening.  A kid will write back and forth to friends when they are logged on to the same game.  It is how they strategize and form friendships with people they may have never met.  Not to mention, kids still write for school.  I am finding that kids today actually love writing more than I ever did as a student.  Maybe that is because writing is taught differently than it was, but I think it is more than that.  Kids see the utility in writing.  They may not be writing in the same ways that I did as a kid, but they are writing frequently and with purpose.

My students are great writers.  I view their work and am amazed at their creativity and eloquence.  Kids CAN write.  They write often and most write very well.