[Teaching_Composition] Internet Info

[Kathy Fitch]

Here's an interesting thing I've recently been noticing about how we turn to
the internet for information.  More and more often, our son's school
assignments--he's in seventh grade--can be located online.  So, his teachers
go online to grab assignments, which they sometimes adapt and update a bit,
but sometimes just use pretty much as they can be found on a variety of
sites, and then the kiddo goes online both to look at the assignment (I
actually taught him this step, for the teacher sites often give him quite a
bit of insight into the mysteries of "what teacher is looking for," and the
goals that the assignment is supposed to fulfill), and to locate the
material he needs to complete the assignment.  So, for his recent "Popcorn
Bag Book Report," he began by having a look at how teachers describe the
project (right on down to the "surprise" popcorn they serve on presentation
day), then read his book on Houdini, then went online to find pictures of
Houdini to illustrate the bag, then Googled, found, and printed out a
Houdini timeline he could use as a kind of quick review of the major
biographical facts as he prepared both the bag itself and the presentation
that was to flow from it.

More and more often, now, I'm noting that he has two basic responses to this
process.  First, he's taken frequently to wondering aloud how the students
who don't have ready access to computers are managing to complete a good bit
of the homework they are assigned each day.  Second, he wonders what the
point is.  The teachers go online to formulate--or even just to *locate*--
the question of the moment; he goes online to answer it.  The whole thing
seems rather pointless to him, at times, and boring, too, especially since
he's fairly eager to go his own way in the online world, formulating and
researching questions that are intriguing to him.  Plus, all this business
(Houdini is cool, and everything--and fascinated him far more than Eleanor
Roosevelt did, which didn't shock me, too much) seriously eats into the time
he could be using to explore and participate in the narrative, economy,
ecology, etc. currently unfolding on Neopets.  Plus, it all interferes with
basketball.  And, of course, none of it is half as absorbing as coping with
the social life.

I'm not sure what all to do with these observations, just yet, but I've been
pondering them.  One bit of pondering led me to books and articles
concerning why middle-school kids so often struggle with getting their
homework done and handed in on time.  It seems all connected, to me.  It is,
perhaps, hard to feel any real sense of urgency about locating, memorizing,
and laboriously copying down (in pencil, for gosh sakes) so much stuff that
is but a Google's length away, which isn't far at all for the computer
blessed, but may as well be light years off for those with no or little
access.

So much to know.  So many paths through it.  School's particular path
through it isn't proving particularly compelling to him.

Kathy