Reading Response 3

by Rodney DeJager

My In class essay was about Clive Thompson's article, “The New Literacy”and his claims about modern writing, and its similarities to the Greek style of writing. Which leads to the argument that “the new literacy” is making our writing worse, it is argued however that modern writing isn't getting worse, it is simply changing, in fact it could be argued that it is improving. I also discussed some of the advantages and consequences of moving away from letter and essay style writing and moving towards “the new literacy”. I expressed my opinion on how this shift affects writing in general, as well as my writing personally. I also stated that in someways letter and essay writing are still valuable on some ways today. I think that our society would lose a skill that we have invested to much time in over the years to move away from letter and essay writing completely.

According to Sven Birkerts: “We are experiencing in our times a loss of depth-a loss, that is, of the very paradigm of depth. A sense of the deep and natural connectedness of things is a function of vertical consciousness. Its apotheosis is what was once called wisdom.” (pg. 32) This quote challenges my opinion of “the new literacy.” I think that birkerts sounds a lot like Professor Sutherland. Both of them think that modern writing is worse then the writing was fifty years ago. I strongly disagree with Birkerts, I think that modern writing is not getting worse, in fact i believe that it is improving. Our generation has not lost our letter and essay writing skills, it has simply chosen to practice this new form of writing. A form that is not worse then letter and essay form, simply a different form.

From this quote I get the impression that Birkerts thinks that even fifteen years ago writing had begun to lose its depth, meaning, and wisdom. Birkerts believes that writing has become dry and meaningless, however Birkerts must be given the benefit of the doubt as his work was written before theories of a writing revolution were even being considered.