The state of writing today

I was doing my daily reading, which I haven't been able to do for months, and this article about teen girl's and writing sucked me in. Pookie is only 5 odd years away from teendom, and I am already starting to worry.

With story after hand-wringing story about the decline of literacy due to short attention spans, texting, et al, it is refreshing to note that the "kids" are doing pretty well by themselves. Doing pretty damn fine, really.

Perhaps the text-laden, word-saturated world they live in now (you are, yourself, reading a blog) actually increases a sense of rhetorical power...makes it tacit, like grammar. Perhaps those time-wasting movies (Saw IV, anyone?) provides a sense of pacing, story-telling and framing for effect.

Infants learn to speak by listening. Perhaps, to a greater degree than has been acknowledged, teens learn to write by "reading" their world.