Cool

This article was intriguing in so many respects. I want to speak to a few of these issues this morning before my thoughts escape my groggy brain.
The discussion of what makes a cool city a desirable place to live was quite interesting to me. The "urban renewal" or regentrification of so many neighborhoods in cities nationwide, locally noticed especially in Milwaukee, has displaced so many residents. As people flock to the 5th Ward, Brewer's Hill (etc.) to the cool lofts and modern residences, I am baffled by the marketing ploys of the real estate developers. They come in and level the deteriorating structures that no one seems to want in an area that no one seems to want to live. The people who lived there may or may not have wanted to be there, and may or may not have wanted to leave. Where do they go? I don't assume that too many of the displaced are moving into the penthouse condos in the newly erected structures.
Furthermore, what makes these "new" places cool? The services provided by the city don't necessarily change. The schools stay the same. Maybe it's the addition of a Starbucks. I just don't "get it." I've visited some of these residences and some just don't seem that "cool", let alone warrant the steep price tags (no offense to people living in a regentrified neighborhood intended).
I loved the analysis of the sunglass-wearing Governor Granholm's attempt to decrease the flight from Michigan, or more accurately, the attempt to repopulate the burnt-out neighborhoods that remain south of 8 Mile Road. Just throw on the Raybans, pack up the Rover, and come on back to Motown. Such attempts to repopulate areas that are "less than desirable" fail to address the actual problems in Detroit: a double-digit unemployment rate and an embarrassingly high violent crime rate. To ignore the actual issues further exploits the already marginalized group of citizens. Where will they go? Will they be able to throw on a pair of Raybans and enjoy a jazz show or a cup at Caribou? I'm hopeful, but I think not.

21st Century Writing

Technology seems to be increasingly changing, remolding, reshaping, etc. the way in which we receive our news, talk to other people, and fare following an automobile accident (thanks airbags and ABS...we almost avoided the Subaru!). It is so much apart of our lives that we fail to stop and think of the changes that have taken place over the past century in the ways that we carry out so many daily, seemingly mundane tasks.
Today in class my students were asked to begin brainstorming the role of writing in the 21st Century. The students were asked to answer certain questions such as: "Why do people write?"; "What do people write?"; "Where do people write?"; "How do people write?"; etc. We discussed the changes in technology over the past 100 years, and how the answers to these questions would have been quite different in 1909.
The discussion became quite lively and entertaining. Listening to the students perceptions of what writing used to be, and what it is today, was quite intriguing. I discussed the controversy of the introduction of the "modern pencil" to the classroom. We also talked about the transformation of the written word from one that is transcribed manually to one that is transmitted to a digital format by the the slightest application of force from our fingertip.
The students realized that they are writing much more than they realized. We discussed the differences between formal and informal writing, and how they are doing much more writing as a whole than the students of 1909. They, and I more so, were impressed.
The readings and discussions pertaining to the evolution of writing have really gotten me thinking about how to better embrace technology in the classroom and to foster both the formal and informal writing in my students. I realize that I need to "take on" new technologies at school to better prepare my students to be writers, and citizens, of the 21st Century and beyond.