Robots will take over writing?

Although I am reluctant to admit it, this seems like a no-brainer.  From NPR comes news that a software program generated a better story than the one produced by a human reporter, who wrote a sports article in which he failed to highlight how the featured college baseball match was the first perfect NCAA game since 2002.  When the robot had a chance to do a rewrite and appropriately emphasized the story's noteworthy aspect, it was deemed to be a superior article.

Narrative Science provided the robot article.

We Turn Data Into Stories

Narrative Science transforms data into high-quality editorial content. Our technology application generates news stories, industry reports, headlines and more — at scale and without human authoring or editing. Narratives can be created from almost any data set, be it numbers or text, structured or unstructured.

Whether you maintain your own proprietary database, or cover subjects supported by broadly available data including public data sources, our technology cost-effectively turns facts and figures into compelling stories in real time.

They offer "Long & short form articles, headlines, summaries & more".  Hmm, I wonder how much Narrative Science charges to write blog posts . . .

Among the young, blogging is in decline because . . . writing is just too hard

Kim Hou, a high school senior in San Francisco, said she quit blogging months ago, but acknowledged that she continued to post fashion photos on Tumblr. “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said. “With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.”

Here are some numbers.

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier...
While the younger generation is losing interest in blogging, people approaching middle age and older are sticking with it. Among 34-to-45-year-olds who use the Internet, the percentage who blog increased six points, to 16 percent, in 2010 from two years earlier, the Pew survey found. Blogging by 46-to-55-year-olds increased five percentage points, to 11 percent, while blogging among 65-to-73-year-olds rose two percentage points, to 8 percent.

I feel like a dinosaur.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/technology/internet/21blog.html?src=me&ref=general

How to confuse a middle-schooler

Here is how a teacher can confuse a middle school student and her parents.

Assign a "character cluster" in English class and provide these three slightly different sets of written instructions:

1. Create a character cluster for Tom and Willie using a minimum of three character traits.
2. Please create a character cluster for both Willie and Mr. Tom, that utilizes a minimum of three character traits.
3. Create 3 character clusters for Mr. Tom and 3 character clusters for Willie ( beginning - middle and end)

The first instructions were written on the classroom board and copied by the student.  The second were on the English teacher's web page and the third were on the resource teacher's web page.

When the student asked her mom for help in figuring out the assignment, mom could not assist because she also was confused by the instructions and had her own set of questions for the teacher.
-- What is a "character cluster"?
-- Should one cluster be created for both characters or should three be created for each character?
-- How many traits should be included, three for each character or three in total? If three in total, should both characters share these traits?

The student finally figured it out and wrote her own instructions:

Create two character clusters, one for Mr. Tom and one for Willie, with 3 character traits for each.

It seems ironic that these instructions were written for an assignment in English class, where the teaching of clear writing is an important objective.

Qualifying for high school honors classes

Many Most* high schools establish some criteria for students to qualify for honors and/or AP classes.  One local high school determines eligibility for 9th grade honors English and social studies classes using a ten-point scoring rubric based on the following:  

Writing Sample	50%
Behavior and Work Habits	30%
Current Average Course Grade	20%

Interested students are required to complete a writing sample during a proctored session.  They are asked to analyze a piece of literature (English) or write a thematic essay based on a time period/event in U.S. History (social studies). No additional details about the rubrics used in the evaluation process have been provided.

I appreciate that writing skills are crucial to success in these types of classes, but I have some reservations about this overall process.

• Writing skills are given great weight, especially in light of what I consider to be the inconsistent quality of this school's writing instruction.  I've seen too many classes where students are routinely given the choice to opt out of writing assignments by creating songs, board games or comic strips instead.
• "Behavior and Work Habits" are weighted heavily, so I am curious how they are measured.  This has the potential to be highly subjective.
• Grades are a relatively small consideration.  Aren't grades supposed to be the best overall measure of a student's academic achievement level?

* UPDATE:  I've corrected this because I don't have data to back up my statement that "most" schools have admission criteria.