Yancey Article

I’d like to spend this post giving my views on the Kathleen Yancey article "Made Not Only in Words: Composition in a New Key." The basic gist of the article is that our society is currently in a communication and technological age that has changed the fabric of what writing is and offers a view of how writing and english classes should be adjusted to take full advantage of current technology.

There was one passage in particular that caught my eye and I think it adds to the direction of the discussion we were having in class. The quote used in the article is from Elizabeth Daley, the dean of the University of Southern California School of Television and Cinema:

"No longer can students be considered truly educated by mastering reading and writing alone. The ability to negotiate through life by combining words with pictures with audio and video to express thoughts will be the mark of the educated student (Yancey 305)."

I happen to agree with Daley in that the skill to get an idea across by using more than words and through multiple mediums is becoming more important each and every day. The issue brought up in class discussion about this, and the overall point of the article, is that these skills need to be formed and developed before college and for many kids the opportunity isn’t there because access to computers, internet and numerous other resources don’t exist in every school to the same degree. So in order for this goal of requiring students to learn and be proficient in some of these more technological subjects that are being suggested, which is a worthwhile goal, there would have to be some sort of policy change that gets schools, from elementary to colleges, adequate access to the necessary equipment in order for there to be any sort of equity of opportunity.

As I have already said, I believe these subjects are very worthwhile in pursuing on a national level but it really brings to light a much more pressing issue in the problems with our educational system as it is right now. There is already a huge gap in this country between the "haves" and the "have nots" and I wonder if this new idea of what it means to be "truly educated," according to Elizabeth Daley, will help reduce that gap or if it will widen it further. I’m not really sure what I think the answer to that question is. I would probably lean towards the gap widening until there are some fundamental changes made in the way education is funded and prioritized.