Help! My Students Write Like They Text

IMHO, LOL, OIC, OMG. If you’ve recently graded middle school or high school writing, chances are you’ve read terms like these; or my favorite, “wtf - idk” which also happened to be an answer on a student’s quiz. As a middle school English teacher, I became more and more perplexed to see students using texting talk on their homework, and classroom writing assignments; not to mention answers on the writing portion of the state standardized test. My students were not differentiating appropriate writing contexts. The answers written on the unit test were written the same way that they invited their friends to hang @ *$ (Starbucks). How do we as educators and parents allow students to creatively express themselves, support them academically, and prepare them for a professional world built on written and verbal communication? Herein lies this text. Hopefully it will alleviate the concerns of those who are worried about the disintegration of the English language and help those ISO (in search of) strategies to support textspeaking learners.

OMG! This book is a real eye-opener to educators everywhere who tend to discount today’s “screenagers” and the texting codes they use to communicate.  In a very accessible way, Dr. French presents practical strategies to use that blend research-based practices with classroom applications that create real breakthroughs to improved writing skills for our “digital native” students.  The ideas presented will motivate even the most reluctant writer. Furthermore, this book is a very helpful tool for limited-texting teachers to feel more confident and competent in making writing instruction more relevant and real to all of their students., I believe this book should be read by every pre-service and practicing English teacher in the world because it is so practical yet deeply based in current research. The idea of “code-switching” was new to me but it makes so much sense that we need to teach students how to maneuver between academic writing and digital writing based on the situation. This translation between the two types of writing requires critical thinking and skills that need to be explicitly taught. Today everyone is a new language learner in informal and formal writing situations and this book brings the reader practical lesson examples about how to bring these code-switching practices to the classroom.

Jenny French has served as an English teacher, instructional coach, assistant professor, and school consultant. She is currently Director of Curriculum, Instruction & Assessment for a school district in southern Indiana where she lives with her husband, four children, and two corgis.