12 Year Old Literacy Is Mostly Sarcasm

I interviewed my 12 year old sister, Chaya, for this assignment.  She started off answering my questions as seriously as she could, but got pretty bored with me after a while.  She started asking more questions toward the end and giving me shorter (more sarcastic) answers.  After reviewing her answers, I couldn’t help but notice that the ones I asked her about earlier years were answered with more juvenile language.  I think this is because she had to think about things from her 5/ 6 year old perspective, so she used her 5/6 year old vocabulary at times.

Q: When you were growing up, how much school reading and school writing was done with computers?  What kinds of things did you do?  What values did your teachers place on computer literacy?

Chaya: We use the computers all the time.  Mostly for articles and websites though.  We’re not allowed to type our papers.

Me: You’re not allowed to turn in typed papers?

Chaya: No.  They want it all hand written.

Me: Why do you think that is?

Chaya: I don’t know.  I think so we don’t cheat.  Probably just to make it harder.  Whatever, it’s stupid.

 

Q: In the next ten years, what will reading and writing become?  What skills and understandings about online literacy will people need to have?  Why?

Chaya: I don’t understand the question.

Me: Will people still be hand writing in ten years?

Chaya: I don’t think so.  We’ll probably all have iPads or something and write on those.

Me: Why do you think that?

Chaya: Because it’s easier and won’t use paper.  We could totally save the rainforest.  And everything is online or on phones or iPads already anyway.