Facebook Has Transformed My Students' Writing -- for the Better

[Commentary] While Facebook and Twitter have eroded writing conventions among my students, they have not killed the most important ingredients in personal writing: self-reflection and emotional honesty.

For younger high school boys particularly, social networking has actually improved writing -- not the product or the process, but the sensitivity and inward focus required to even begin to produce a draft that will eventually be worth editing. The Internet is no refuge from the pains of adolescence. On Facebook and Twitter, students humiliate, jeer, and shame one another. They engage in antisocial, even criminal behavior -- leaving belligerently racist comments on links, harassing classmates with derogatory posts. At the same time, the emotional distance fostered by Facebook and other sites can encourage a healthier candor, too. Facebook is a genuine outlet for the young men I teach. Just as social networking frees users from public decorum and encourages the birthing of troll alter egos, it allows my students to safely, if temporarily, construct kinder, gentler versions of themselves as well. The great news is that this has a positive effect on teaching and learning. My students in 2013 are more comfortable writing about personal issues than were my classmates in the mid-late '90s. When I assign narrative essays, students discuss sexual abuse, poverty, imprisoned family members, alcoholic parents, gang violence, the struggle to learn English in America -- topics they may need to address, not merely subjects they believe might entertain or interest a reader.