Writing's Myths

We began our readings with Frank Smith's "Myths of Writing" and ended this unit with Socrates relating to young Phaedrus the "Myth of Theuth."Myths are very important because they are often unstated assumptions or tacit knowledge shared by a group of people. Often, people do not even know they believe these myths even when you point them out. Derrida, in his re-reading of the myth from Phaedrus, was simply trying to point out a myth of Western civilization. But myths are not benign fairly tales. They serve a function in that they help a group orient itself toward group goals and objectives. This is to say that they help structure activity as well as perception.

We have looked at the following myths, as well as others:
* writing is essentially good grammar and mechanics
* writing is separate from thinking
* writing is as a fairly linear activity moving from thought to handing someone else a piece of paper
* writing is not technological
* writing is just good speech or thought put on paper

 All of these things have a tremendous impact on the ways we teach others to write as well as ways we ourselves approach various writing tasks.

Given social media like Facebook, the comment feature on the Amazon Kindle, email, and regular computer-based internet fora, we are quite arguably writing more now than at any other point in human history. And it is attracting attention.

What do you think the future holds for writing? What will be considered "good writing" in ten years? Twenty? A hundred? What myths do you think will persist and which ones will perish? Why do you think that? Is anything needed to help writing's future or should it be content with laboring against these myths?