Boy, does that sound good!


"Writing for the world" has a wonderful ring to it. From their own small corner of the globe pupils are able to make their mark. No longer are they anonymous statistics. With the aid of the internet they can project their thoughts and desires, their interests and their knowledge to the world. No doubt about it, it sounds great.

The problem is, however, that great as it sounds, it doesn't seem to mean much. Perhaps being aware of the fact that we're writing to a worldwide public can instill in us a sense of responsibility - we might feel the full weight of the world upon our shoulders and thus feel, even though we can retreat into our anonymity, that we have to write accurately and properly (and, if we're dealing with something like the Wikipedia, factually). On the other hand, pupils in school still have a very incomplete, perhaps even egocentric, vision of just what "the world" is. Trying to instill a sense of responsibility through invoking "the world" probably meets with misperceptions that cancel out whatever we may hope to gain. What's more, even when pupils actually do feel that sense of responsibility, it doesn't necessarily follow that they have the ability to write in clear, complete and accurate sentences. In order to do so they need a great deal of practice - and as I've already noted, most of the entries in the writing blogs I've seen don't seem to undergo any editing but instead simply get posted ... and forgotten.



Go to: A magic strand?