Source Map

Thesis: High School students can become successful writers with the use of new media.

Source Map:

1. Counterpoint: Many people look back at their English classes from high school with fear and dislike, because of the way teachers asked them to write about topics they weren't interested in and write in a way that was difficult for them.

*"Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse)." (copyblogger.com)

*Effects texting has on grammar. (netlingo)

A. Point: While writing academically does have benefits, more and more teachers are incorporating new media to help their students enjoy the writing process. This is allowing students to write about what they want to write about, but still go through the growth and learning process of writing.

*Alvermann

*"Public schools typically place heavy restrictions on the use of the Internet. Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube are often blocked in libraries and computer

labs. The result is a failure to build a bridge between the technological world Millennials live in and the classrooms we expect them to learn in. Such restrictions are almost always justified by claiming that they are intended to protect students. Such protection, however well-intentioned, actually fails to prepare young people by not providing the adult supervision and guidance that many of them would benefit from during their online encounters. If there is a crisis in today's schools, it probably has more to do with students' perceptions that school is boring and largely irrelevant to preparation for life outside school." (Considine, 473)

2. Counterpoint: Students spend too much of their time with social networking and not enough time focusing on their studies.

*Study showing the time spent teenagers are using some form of new media. (Bower)

*Study showing the time spent on the internet. (DiMaggio)

*"There are changes in how parents nag. In what they nag about. In frequency. Parents know more about flubbed tests and skipped homework because of online grading systems. They know more about social lives because of Facebook and MySpace pages.

"The fact that you have more nagging options is what's good about it--The plethora of nagging options," says Martha McGrath." (St. George, 1)

"Reginald Black, 46, a Woodbridge father of three sons, checks online grade reports every morning during this school year. "That's the first thing I do when I turn he computer on," he says. "Some days it can make you feel good. Some days it can wreck your whole day." (St. George, 2)

A. Point: The internet, specifically social networking, can improve students ability to express themselves through writing.

*"Give a middle school child from a low-income house-hold a home computer with free Internet access and watch that child become a better reader. That's the conclusion of a new study that highlights potential academic consequences ofthe so-called digital divide separating poor kids from their better-off peers.

A team led by psychologist Linda A. Jackson of Michigan State University in East Lansing gave computers, Internet access, and in-home technical support to 140 children. The mostly 12-to-14-year-old, African-American boys and girls lived in single-parent families with incomes no higher than $15,000 a year. The

researchers recorded each child's Internet use from December 2000 through June 2002.

Before entering the study, these children generally did poorly in school and on academic-achievement tests. However, overall grades and reading achievement scores-but not math-achievement scores-began to climb after 6 months of home Internet use. These measures had ascended farther by the end ofthe study,

especially among the kids who spent the most time online." (Bower, 377)

3. Counterpoint: The ability to access so much on the internet allows teenagers to plagiarize and cheat their way through school.

*"The Internet is a vast, rapidly growing network of over a billion electronic pages that are fully accessible to our students. It is an incredible resource for young, bright minds. However, not all aspects of this resource are positive. One of the primary concerns facing teachers is that millions of computer-savvy students find it easy to use this massive library of information to plagiarize material, to use someone else's intellectual property as their own without citations or credit. High school students need to understand the ethics of paper writing.

At our last count, there were about 200 "cheat sites" with names like School Sucks and Evil House of Cheat. Each month 2.6 million students access these sites. These 200 sites list tens of thousands of free and purchased papers that students with computers hooked to the Internet can download in seconds, reformat, then turn in as their own work." (Owen, 1)

*Testimonials from current high school students.

A. Point: Students will find ways to cheat regardless and the use of new media allows children the opportunity to learn things they normally wouldn't have the chance to learn.

*"Even as globalization has fed worries about whether U.S. students can keep up with the rest of the world, it also has spawned classroom connections across oceans. Teachers, driven by a desire to help students navigate a world made smaller by e-mail, wikis and teleconferences, say lessons once pulled mainly from textbooks can come to life through real-world interactions." (Glod, 1)

*Testimonials of students learning through new media and connecting with students worldwide. (Glod)

Conclusion: Even with the added dilemmas new media brings to a students education, with the added support from parents and teachers new media can and is making American students better writers.