That’s a bold claim! And one I’m going to outline in the presidential talk.
Even though it’s a bold claim, it’s one that I think is evidenced everywhere–in handwritten notes that we still compose (see this image for example); in diverse electronic texts; in social networking sites of all kinds. I see it–and so do we all, whether we like it or not. Research–by the newmedia group at MIT sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation and the Pew Foundation–documents the fact that people are composing in multiple genres and for several purposes and audiences. Many folks, including myself (see, for example, myCCCC Chair’s Addresshave made this observation, so that part isn’t new. What is new, I think, is a set of questions and forecasts:
**What role/s, if any, has writing played in the development of literacy?
**What does that role tell us about the relationship of literacy, writing, identity, and democracy?
**If I am correct in identifying this moment as the moment of writing, what are the implications for education?
**And in this discussion, what do we mean by the word writing?
Tags: history, literacy, NCTE, presidential address, writing
