“Popular Culture is Killing Writing” by Bronwyn T. Williams
Please read the Article and answer the questions below. You may create your own post or answer in a comment! The responses are due on Monday, October 26th.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10sCSbfWxGFle_uMOlhjePpUoX3a1ukNv/view?usp=sharing
- Some people argue that popular culture is killing writing, explain their argument.
- The author, disagrees with this argument. What proof does the author provide that in fact, popular is not only killing writing but helps student writing. Provide 1-2 examples.
- What did you think of the piece? Explain!
This piece was very interesting and it focused on a topic, I often don’t read about. The idea of popular culture being responsible for the delay in some kid’s writing and reading skills. I believe the perspective that popular culture has become more diverse over the years moving away from standard views on popular culture. Students have a huge collection to pick from, some books being very advanced and some being pretty easy. You can’t blame popular culture as a whole for being entirely responsible for poor writing, because their are so many different types of popular culture available. In the text the author explained how many popular computer games that take explicit instruction and guidance to play. In this instances the kids turn to their friends for help, which is providing them with new knowledge, so they do take away something from the video games. Reading and writing that takes place online also exposes children to the concepts of audience, genre and writing styles. It seems to be more positive outcomes of reading and writing online then negatives. The main argument against popular culture is that it’s made to easy and simple for children, and that they learn nothing from it. This argument can be easily disproven when you examine all the different genres of texts. Reading and writing skills are learned from practice reading, and writing you aren’t just taught it once and then set for life. These skills are developed over a lifetime. To conclude it is completely inaccurate to say kids learn nothing from popular culture, because in fact they learn a lot of rhetoric and engagement skills.
Thanks, Shaniyah for your thoughtful response. I love how you present your thoughts on this interesting topic. The author, actually, agrees with you. He presents the counterargument first, but then goes on to present evidence to support exactly what you are saying! Thanks!
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In the article Popular Culture is Killing Writing the author Bronwyn T. Williams is sharing some facts about our writings and how poorly it have gotten. They think popular culture is the one to be blame for it but in reality nothing is to be blame for the poor writing and just like the author said in page one “While the culprits have changed over the years, from newspapers to movies to tele- vision in the 20th-century, to digital games and social media today, the concerns and complaints remain remarkably the same” and since everything stood the same popular culture shouldn’t be blamed for students writing skills. Lately students have a lot of options to pick from whether it is video games, social media, televisión, songs, books and many more all these things are helping them improve their writing.
I agree with the author’s opinion about popular culture not killing writing and he’s right instead is helping students with their writing. The author provided us evidence that supports this for example, “The reason students read popular culture with facility and enthusiasm, including complex and sophisticated forms, is not a matter of simplicity, it’s a matter of practice. Learning how to navigate any genre takes time and practice to figure out how it works”. Another example from the article is that “Yet, if you had more practice, your familiarity and facility would increase. There is no doubt that, for the great majority of students, they have much, much more practice reading and making sense of popular culture than they do with academic articles or textbooks”. This shows that it doesn’t matter if is popular culture or a textbook is just the time and practice you put into it that will help your writing.
What I think of this piece is that it is a well written article defending the idea that popular culture is killing writing. I have a lot of mixed emotions towards this piece because of the fact that people actually think that popular culture is killing writing and if that’s the case I would say that people’s ignorance is the one killing writing.
Joscar, excellent! I am glad that you think that students have a lot to gain from reading pop culture. You do a great job of looking closely at the author’s argument and sharing your thinking in response to it. Thanks!
Although people may believe that popular culture is killing writing, Bronwyn T. Williams expresses otherwise in their article. Some people may believe that the modern day’s television, film, digital games, etc “will produce naive, emotional writing that is riddled with errors.” They have also concluded that pop culture forces “harmful stereotypes and brainwashing them into becoming mindless consumers.” Claiming the young generations don’t want to read novels, type emails with typos, and write in “text-speak” in their college papers. Williams addresses that while he does not agree with these statements, popular culture can lead to problematic situations regarding gender, race, and violence, which can impact/influence people negatively. Nevertheless, he states that in the United States “literacy rates continue to increase” due to more people reading and writing online, this has led to students” making fewer errors of usage and style” which demonstrates that they are learning rhetorical concepts and skills. Williams states that although not all of the pop-culture works to “educate” people, it has a variety of genres, such as certain video games, that can be used to help others learn to use creativity, and diligence to be able to complete them, therefore they can use these skills and apply them to academic texts making them think more critically. I thought this article fairly introduced each side, and Williams successfully countered the argument that popular culture is killing writing, I believe that each genre can be used in different ways in order to learn useful skills and apply them to real life.
Claudia,
Excellent work analyzing this complex argument! You present a thoughtful analysis and I love the quotes you use to support your thinking! Thank you!
In this passage there was one line that i didn’t agree with and that was “pop culture makes student writers more naĂŻve ,emotional and open to more errors” . To a certain extent i understand where the writer is coming from but why would you expect students to write about stuff outside of whats trending . i dont think writers should write about something just to stick to the status quo but i think writing about things that are trending if its meaningful to the writer isnt wrong. We live in a world full of voices and opinions and writing is another way of having your voice heard. Saying that pop culture makes writers emotional isnt a bad thing , a writer should put emotion into their work. It gives it a greater dept and meaning and you chose your words more carefully when you are writing with emotion. On the other hand i do agree that strictly writing because something is trending in pop culture at a certain time could make someone’s writing naĂŻve . In the end would i say pop culture is killing writing ? No, pop culture gives us more to write about . Some writing pieces may be more meaningful than others but thats normal considering everyone has different interest and motives in life
I am glad that you think that popular culture helps strengthen writing! Thanks for sharing your response!