Texting and Language

Before reading this chapter in Crystal's book, The Gr8 Db8, I didn't value the "art" of texting. In fact, I despised it because my students continually turned in assignments written in "textese." Not until the completion of this chapter did I realize the complexity of the language and the sophistication involved in order to create meaningful messages. According to Sutherland, "text is penmanship for illiterates" but an illiterate doesn't posses the knowledge to abbreviate words in such a way that they convey ideas. Viewing the poetry entries allowed be to appreciate the art of text in a new and respectful way. I think I might challenge my students to write a poem using "textese" in order to promote higher order thinking skills.