Texting: Bad 4 Skool?

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- You don't need punctuation, correct spelling or complete sentences to text. So what does that do to students' language skills in the real world?

Does writing like this…

R U going 2nite 4 R project?

...spell trouble in the classroom?

Meghan Rowlands teaches high school English. She's noticed some text messaging habits trickling into students' schoolwork. "It's short, it's informal, it's abbreviated and so they have short, abbreviated sentences in their written work," Rowlands told Ivanhoe.

And punctuation can be a problem. "Commas are just kind of sporadically placed because I tell them to put commas in their papers, so they're just kind of put in some places, then they're not in the appropriate places," said Rowlands.

But ninth grade english teacher Kathleen Servick does not think text messaging has an impact on students' language skills. "I see kids still being able to separate the difference between standard academic language and a different audience, which is their peer group," Servick told Ivanhoe.

It's just a matter of knowing when to use text lingo … and when not to.

If you would like more information, please contact:

Heather Thompson

Bishop Hartley High School

Columbus, OH

hthompso@cdeducation.org

(614) 237-5421 ext. 228