Hello and Happy Early Friday,

I was editing some student documents for my brother who’s a teacher and came across this line, “…writing skills are not much in demand due to the use of the laptop.” The middle school students he teaches work off laptops for their assignments which I get, but how did writing skills loose out in this equation? I’m thinking the students have to still write papers don’t they? Do they? And if they don’t why not? And they still have to write reports, write sentences, write their names at least; so why aren’t writing skills in demand? They definitely should be—must be; I don’t believe you can successfully get through life without knowing how to write something not to speak of writing well. Though I can understand where the mindset of “not much in demand” comes from.

My ten year old is one of those who doesn’t agree writing is very important. For him and probably other kid’s his age and older it’s a terrible chore to write anything and the only way to get through it is to be as succinct as possible, one word sentences if that; brevity is the key and the use of your imagination is a no-no; too much trouble. What a shame. I try to get my kid to see not just how important and beneficial it is to learn to write well, but how beautiful it can be and how adding spice to the writing of a generic story just makes it better. When you can write about a dog trotting home, why not make the dog a tiny scared one whose home is ten miles away through a bad neighborhood; make it fun and able to capture attention.

I’ll keep working on getting my kid to write more often, the old –fashioned paper and pen kind of writing and learn to love it. Though I may be working at a losing battle because my kid soon will be going to middle school where he’ll get his own laptop so I don’t have much time.

Keep writing alive.

If you have any comments or suggestions please e-mail me at my new address: mathewsla@hotmail.com

Until next time, God willing