Yancey's Writing in the 21st Century

The 3 challenges of writing in the 21st century are developing new models of writing, designing a new curriculum supporting those models, and creating models for teaching those models. Yancey explained writing as a technology that exists "in spite of" because of the challenges faced. Only certain people could write because there were prohibitions against females, colored people, and young kids. Yancey's main argument is to get students to compose often and become the citizen writers of our future. Writing hasn't gotten as much cultural respect as reading because society could control it citizens through reading whereas when writing, citizens can exercise their own control. Reading tends to produce feelings of intimacy and warmth while writing was associated with unpleasantness. Some negative associations people make with writing is that it required a good deal of labor and it has been associated with testing. Process writing is a curriculum composed of inanition, drafting, peer review, reflection, revising and rewriting, and publishing. Self sponsored writing is a writing that belongs to a writer, and not an institution, with the result that people want to compose. I do self writing in text messages, emails, and on twitter. The 21st century is the age of composition because it is a period where composers become composers not through direct and formal instruction, but rather through what we call an extracurricular social co-apprentenship. This article matters because the meaning of literacy has changed and educators need to become serious about helping students become citizen composers. Literacy is described as being able not only to read and write on paper but also on social media.