The Role Of Writing In Freakonomics

The real world’s standards are constantly evolving, growing ever more demanding on the public education system, yet despite this the primary indicator used for the success of the public education system is the high school graduation rate. The high school graduation rate is a deeply flawed statistic conceived many decades ago and hasn’t changed at all, failing to encompass better and broader definitions for public education system success. However, the focus on critical writing skills at New Dorp High School had the effect of dramatically increasing the school’s graduation rate from 63 percent before the “writing revolution” to 80 percent (Tyre). At face value the increase is a tremendous success, but just because a student can graduation high school does not mean they have the technical skills to prepare them for college or the workforce. A list of the fastest growing occupations in the United States provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics mostly includes jobs from the medical field or occupations that require

Cullington moves onto introducing her experiment to test the ongoing debate and to get some more answers as to what texting really does to writing. Not only does she question students and teachers but she also takes the time to analyze several different students’ pieces to see how many errors occur throughout them. Cullington made sure to interview several different types of students to “allow for a wide array of thoughts and opinions on the issue” (366) so she could guarantee that there would be no kind of bias. Cullington asked teachers and students questions that were very alike but made sure to appeal to the type of audience they were and also trusted her “knowledge of them to help [her] interpret their responses” (366) as well as spot texting errors in the students’ papers. Cullington viewed “twenty samples of students’ writings” (367) to verify that she had a wide spread set of examples to gather information from.

Michaela Cullington’s essay “Texting and Writing” explores the possible effect of teen texting on formal writing in school. Cullington lists three different hypotheses scholars pose about the cor- relation between the two: those who criticize texting for its negative impact on writing, those who believe texting is actually a beneficial exercise in writing, and those who see no relationship at all. Cullington begins her analysis with the first theory, quoting concerned teachers, citing the shock- ing statistic that “only 25% of high school seniors are ‘proficient’ writers” (90), and adding testi- mony from two of her former teachers. Cullington then explores the second take on texting and writing by providing contrasting testimony from other teachers who believe that texting is a bless- ing to their students’ writing. Cullington retrieves support for these two opposing views from inter- views and previous studies. To explore the theory that texting is irrelevant to formal writing, how- ever, she performs her own research, gathering results from seven students, two teachers, and an analysis of students’ written work. Despite the testimonial evidence against and in support of tex- ting, Cullington’s own results show that texting has “no effect, positive or negative, on [students’] writing as a result of texting” (95).

Additionally, having social media and the internet, texting, email etc., also creates more chances of writing. Most parents and teachers think that this is causing a downfall in school and literacy capabilities but in reality its actually helping. According to Thompson (Source G), she believes we are in the middle of a literacy revolution. This generation writes more than any other generation before. Most peoples’ writing happens outside the classroom. It

For many students in America, cursive writing is as foreign as the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egypt. In most colleges and universities, more students are increasingly using tablet computers

Cursive is still taught and it is still not gone if you think it is. About 75 percent of second- and third-grade teachers continue to include cursive instruction in their curriculum even though it is not being used as much anymore, according to a new national survey of elementary school teachers. Some kids love to have nice penmanship and most teachers are catching on. They teach kids how to write cursive whether it is by a blackboard, a smart board, or a white board, students don't care, they just want to learn it. It can help students dramatically when it comes to reading and writing skills. If

People claim that new developments have caused kids to be so dependent on their devices, that they can't think for themselves. This claim can also be turned around by saying that technology has given kids more opportunities and chances to learn, and in particular, more opportunities to write (Source 7, Clive Thompson). An example of this is a study done at Stanford University, where it was discovered that Stanford students did a stunning 38 percent of their writing outside of the classroom (Source 7, Clive Thompson). With the developments of E-mail, texting, and social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, younger people are constantly writing in their every day lives. In the past, people would, for the most part, stop writing once the finishes their education. Now however, people are more comfortable, and more used to, writing. And while the argument that technology has decreased level of the vocabulary and vernacular of young people is true in some cases, the increase in writing shown by young people has led to a greater ability to convey information to other people, and a greater comfort in talking to people they don't know (Source 7, Clive Thompson). As Andrea Lunsford says, "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek Civilization" (Source 7, Clive

Technology has completely taken over when it comes to writing and it’s not fair to strip this curriculum out of schools and it’s especially not fair for the parents of young children to have to teach their children at home how to write in the cursive script I think it should at least be offered as an extra curriculum class such as music, band, and sports. I think that cursive writing could really benefit anyone children especially but for some reason the school systems have become so dependent on computer technology that a lot of the testing in schools are even done on a computer I remember doing CSAP testing and you had to make sure you filled in the correct bubble just right. As the author writes cursive is a lost virtue and to get it back is more than likely not going to happen this really makes me wonder what other skills schools no longer teach children I mean I know as parents it’s our job to prepare our children for the future but if it comes down to the point to where were having to teach our children the necessities to get them through life at home then what exactly is the point of public schools if they aren’t preparing our children for the future. To me cursive is like math people use it every day and if children aren’t being taught how to write it they definitely aren’t going to be able to

Suzi Allan sought help at her son’s school after hearing from his teacher that his handwriting needed some work. She was wondering when the kids would learn cursive writing and was told by the teacher that the school wasn’t offering it. Something needed to be done. Action was taken by Pam Roach, a state lawmaker in Washington, who tried to get a law passed that would require cursive to be taught in Washington schools, however it did not get voted on so it did not become a law.Schools should ensure that students value their education.(Seattle Times via Newsela).That’s why schools should teach cursive writing.

Clive Thompson’s “On the New Literacy” discusses the argument that technology is causing our youth’s writing skills to decline. He starts by mentioning a study that shows writing has actually improved and is having a re-birthing of sorts. Andrea Lunsford, A writing professor at Stanford University, ran the study, collecting nearly 15,000 student writings ranging from class assignments to blog posts. She discovered Stanford students were writing outside of the classroom 38 percent of the time and due to the internet, these writings had a bigger audience, which in effect made the students writing better. He states that Stanford students were less enthused about in-class writing because the only audience would be their teacher

In today’s workforce, jobs are heavily based upon the skills that one has and how well one can perform them in their field of study. A major component skill that lacks in many young people today is writing. Writing plays is an important role in life, one needs it to communicate with other people. If young people are not taught this in their years of schooling and do not learn to master it, consequently they will come out on the bottom with poor writing skills. Which in

What is Freakonomics? Freakonomics is an interesting book that evokes a thoughtful and provocative analysis of human motivation and modern living. It shows you a common world through a totally different pair of lens. The author uses the raw data of economics to ask imaginative questions while it forces the reader to think cleverly and divertingly of the answers. His approach to economics was done in a very unconventional way- as a smart, curious explorer parallel to Christopher Columbus when he discovered the Americas.

However, stated writing is important to him but struggle to indicate why he felt it is important. Jack mostly writes a school but also reports he writes a home when completing homework. Overall, Jack feels “so-so” about his writing ability because sometimes he does “not like to write.” He further stated everything about his writing is good, except for his penmanship; this is something he indicated he would like to improve. Overall, impression of his handwriting sample was concerning. The sample provided did not have proper spacing between words and formation of letters was unclear. He did well with capitalization and use of periods…

The nature of writing has changed in the past century. While writing still remains a form of visual communication, much of this change has been a result of technological advancements such as, from pen to paper or from a typewriter to a networked computer. The changes and expansion in the ways we are able to write today have brought about changes in writing pedagogy as well. The teaching of writing has been part of formal schooling in the United States for over 200 years (Kean 7). One major pedagogic change in United States’ education has to do with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. These standards have led to a change in the instruction of writing in schools. This paper, will focus on instructional changes of writing over time and current expectations for writing abilities as whole.

In a world driven by technology, it is easy to throw away learning methods of the past in favor of following up and coming trends. However, when it comes to writing by hand versus typing, the advantages to learning of writing by hand far outweigh the ease of use of typing. Through academic research of college note-takers and primary students as well as research on how the neuroscience behind hand writing works, it is proven that hand writing is superior to typing for learning.