Instant Messaging Communication-Lewis and Fabos

Lewis and Fabos in this article discuss the increased need for a pedagogy that includes new literacies. Throughout the article, Lewis and Fabos also discuss the importance of using new literacties such as instant message communication. Lewis and Fabos go on to discuss instant messaging communication through the example of two girls in the midwest. Throughout the article, Lewis and Fabos discuss the different literary elements that are applicable in instant messaging and how instant messaging could possibly be used in the classroom.
The first literary element that is evident in instant messaging is voice. When talking online, students must use different voices in different conversations. For example, in the article, Sam uses different voices to talk to different friends. She says that she uses a more "sweet and soft" tone with her best friend. Sam also says that someone that she does not know added her as a friend and when talking to that girl, Sam attempts to mock the way the girl speaks so she is changing her voice again. Voice is an important element in the English classroom. Many students become comfortable writing in one voice and are hesistant to explore other voices that they could possibly write in. Talking online causes these students to take on different voices in order to tell stories and chat with different friends. As students use these different voices in their instant messaging they will become more apt to use them in their writing.
Subject matter and audience are other concepts that students are able to practice in their instant messaging. When Sam talks about different topics with her friends, she must identify her audience and speak to that specific audience. For example, the article says that Sam changes her tone and subject matter when talking to a boy that she likes from school. Sam realizes that this boy is a different audience than her best friend, Karrie, and she talks differently to him. Sam changes her words and her tone in order to try to seem "cool" and get into a new group of friennds. By doing this, Sam is realizing her audience and changing her subject matter and tone to fit the audience that she is speaking to.
Lewis and Fabos go on to say that students such as Sam use instant messaging, or IM, because it provides them with any easy way to communicate that they say is not as awkward as telephone or face-to-face conversations. IM is beneficial for students because as Sam stated, it is often difficult for young teens to feel comfortable talking in face-to-face situations, especially with members of the opposite sex. In these situations, instant messaging allows them to practice their language and speech even when they are too shy to talk to these people in person. This conversation that takes place will help students when they write in class to learn to express themselves because each time that they IM, they are basically writing a short essay to their friends.
Instant messaging was and is one of the fastest growing modes of communication. There are constantly new forms of instant messaging. IM has moved from Windows to MSN to Facebook to Gmail. This constant growth in our culture has caused more and more people to begin instant messaging. Rather than trying to draw students away from their computers and instant messaging, teachers must use that as a tool for the classroom. As I have stated earlier in this blog, students are able to attempt new voices and tones, as well as to consider the audience to whom they are speaking and to make any changes in tone or voice that they must make because of the audience. There is not anything in this article that I believe I need to question, yet there are things that I would like for Lewis and Fabos to expand on. I would have liked for Lewis and Fabos to have expanded on the ways in which instant messaging affects the classroom from the inside and outside. Is instant messaging and its rise in our culture a good thing for the classroom? I believe that it is because of the reasons that I have stated about it helping students with voice, tone, and audience. One of the best essays that gave me the most pride that I have written in my academic career was one that I wrote in instant message form. This was a new genre for me, yet it was a very familiar one because of my days spent in front of a computer sending and receiving these messages. If not for instant messaging, I would lack many of the writing skills that I have developed today.