What is Written Proficiency?
written proficiency is when a students reads to write, and writes to be read. When thay are able to express themselves clearly to various audiences in multiple genres and subject areas through their ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. They are also able to evaluate their own writing in order to revise effectively, taking charge of their own writing process.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
In Fahrenheit 451 we were asked to read a book and then to do a reading packet. In the reading packet we where asked to complete the journal that corresponded to the chapters we were finished reading. The reason we had to read this book was because we were given a article written by John Smith a editor from Teen Ink.He wanted us to read this book because he wanted us to see Bradney's depiction of a world overwhelmed and controlled by the media, and how eerily similar it is to the world our readership is growing up with.Teen Ink was asking for us to write a article explaining some sort of media control how it controls many teens. In this project, I became a better writer, I became a better writer because i know that if you state evidence in each of your paragraphs you have a better possibility to make your reader believe you are right because of the facts/evidence you have in your writing.Written Proficiency means that you make sure that you write many things based on your topic.My article was about how social networking sites make it easier for people to cyber bully and what is the effect on them.
Social Networking Sites + Teens= Cyber bullying
Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year. Social networking sites should be used for good, and for what they are made for to connect people, friends, and family. But instead they are used in the wrong way sometimes; Social networking sites are the major cause of cyber bullying. They also have caused many teen deaths in the past years. Teens are easily bullied and innocent people are being controlled by other people on these sites 24/7. People even go through the process of making a fake account in order for them to have some fun and cyber bully someone. They feel more secure doing it behind a screen because of lack of face to face. Public commenting areas on these sites, which allow strangers to interact back with a person, also make it easier for cyber bullies or for anyone to cause humiliation to a person. Creation of fake identities, lack of face to face, and public commenting make it much easier for cyber bullying to happen on social networking sites.
Social networking sites make it easier to cyber bully because of people creating fake identities and bullying on the internet with people impersonating someone they are not. Anyone could easily make fake email account and provoke teens till the point where they just can't take it anymore and do the unthinkable, suicide. According to Hutton from the article called what is Cyber bullying “Digital cases take bullying to a new heights and challenge police trying to arrest offenders and prevent violence from escalating--or even leading to potential suicide. Officials say they also need faster turnaround for records subpoenaed from social media." What this quote is suggesting is that the creations of these fake identities are making the rates of violence and potential suicides increase. As time goes on we will see more increasing in use of people using social networking sites to threaten or bully other people. This media is controlling children, making them use the internet for the wrong reasons. Social networking sites should be used for the reason they were made for communicating with friends family & to meet new people.
Lack of face to face also makes it easier to cyber bully because the bully is sitting behind a keyboard and a screen feeling safe, making it so that they can humiliate other people, not being afraid of their reaction because they are not face to face. Many people cyber bully because they would not say it in the presence of the other person and because. They also do it because the simply enjoy it and find it funny when in reality they don't know all the harm they are causing this person. Cyber bullying on these sites lead to unhealthy teens and their deaths, and we don't want that. Saying hurtful things on social networking site is more harmful to young people than face to face bullying because of these reasons; the insult, comments or images can be preserved by the person who was bullied or by others so that the victim may read or view them over and over again and the harm is re-inflicted with each reading or viewing, The size of the audience that is able to view or access the damaging material increase the victims humiliation. Many young people are friends with or know their cyber bullied either through schools or other personal connections, increasing the potential for embarrassment and humiliation., social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace allow cyber bullies to engage in campaigns against a particular person which may involve many others, and the speed at which harmful messages can reach large audiences also plays a major part in making cyber bullying so damaging to the targets." This means that these 5 things make it more harmful for teens to cyber bully because of lack of face to face. This idea of lack of face to face is shown in Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451, in a world where media is a huge addiction, where books are illegal to have and read, where your books get burned if you are caught with them and where media is basically in control. One of the main characters is Guy Montag, a fireman who suddenly realizes the emptiness in his life and starts to look for the meaning of the books he is supposed to be burning and getting rid of. In the book Montag and some other fireman are sent to burn some books that a lady had hidden in her neighbor’s house in the attic, when Montag goes to open the attic books fall upon him he says, “How inconvenient! Always before it had been like snuffing a candle. The police went first and adhesive-taped the victim's mouth and bandaged off into their glittering beetle cars, so when you arrived you found an empty house. You weren't hurting anyone you were hurting only things." Pg36. This quote shows that it is harder to hurt someone when you are face to face. Specifically Montag thinks about how when no one is there you aren't hurting anyone you are hurting only things. These sources show that it is harder to bully a person when you are not face to face.
Finally public commenting areas make it easier to cyber bully because the comments are there for everyone to see which does make it more embarrassing for that person. People post harmful or humiliating comments on a person profile so that they can feel bad about themselves which can have many effects on teens. One of the effects can be always being angry, sad, being Depressed or be unhealthy which can lead to potential suicide. When it comes to Cyber-bullying, they are often motivated by anger, revenge or frustration. This makes it for the person to want to cyber bully because they have all this anger and aggression towards someone and they need to get it out on someone else. Sometimes they do it for entertainment or because they are bored and have too much time on their hands, many do it for laughs or to get a reaction. What teens don't realize is that they are hurting someone else and could cause them to do something horrible and end up dead because of people who find it funny to cyber bully teens.
To conclude I challenge you to make a change and try to prevent cyber bullying from happening. Try to save someone, ask them if they have been cyber bullied or if they are being cyber bullied , let’s try to bring the rate of violence on the internet and potential suicides down. You can help by notifying an adult if you are being bullied or if someone you know is being bullied. Cyber bullying is a serious matter whether you agree with me or not, it needs to be stopped. Therefore creation of fake identities, lack of face to face, and public commenting make it much easier for cyber bullying to happen on social networking sites.