Reading Response 3

In my first in class essay I wrote about Clive Thompson’s “The New Literacy” My center was that with the new way of writing we have better control of our writing than the people have had in the past. With all of the online writing our communication can come more quickly, with emails and blogs. Since, we don’t have asynchronous writing, but more lowing communication. A great author Sven Birkerts wrote “The Owl Has Flown.” In his essay, Birkerts maintains that, “interestingly, this shift from vertical to horizontal parallels the overall societal shift from bounded lifetimes in single locales to live lived in geographical dispersal amid streams of data. What one by forsaking the village and the magnification resulting from the reception of the familiar, one recoup by gaining a more inclusive perspective, a sense of the world picture.”(Page 31) Birkerts is insisting that from coming from only academic writing (vertical) to life writing (horizontal) has gained a shift into the social standings of the academic writing. With the shift in the writing the viewpoint of someone from the other part of the world can obtain more information. While someone looses by forsaking the village with the magnification gained. Magnification is enlarging the idea. When enlarging the amount of knowledge that one can obtain the way you view one-thing changes. You know much more on that one topic but you also know much more on another topic, which might change your outlook on the prior idea. After regaining the composure you may be able toe acknowledge the idea once more. Then, the affect you have will change your perspective. The way things are viewed will greatly be changed.

I think that what Birkerts write help strengthens my point on literacy. He says that with new ideas the perspective will change. The modern viewer has more access to the knowledge all over the world. The new way of information being exchanged will strengthen every single person worldwide ability to gain more knowledge. My points are still the same about the new way of literacy being fantastic to mankind.