That's a good point. And while technology does offer lots of new possibilities, I'm not sure I'm unsatisfied with the assignments, goals, and classroom experiences that need nothing more than a chalkboard and interested students. As you know, Carole, I'm conflicted on this one. I have a strong sense that my great-aunt, while not the most imaginative of thinkers, had at 18 a stylistic control of language that very very few of my current students can match. I don't think our students are coming to us adequately prepared in traditional writing skills.
Pound says a new form is a new idea.
I think a bad form is often a bad idea. I don't think you can think clearly if you don't command the architecture of the sentence. Still, it may be that I'm being deluded by a kind of nostalgia. Maybe multiple literacies are an inevitable and perhaps even desireable result of technology. But that's getting ahead of ourselves.