The language teens use in digital spaces--from social network posts to instant message chats to text messages--often does not adhere to Standard Written English (SWE). Their digital writing involves a combination of written and conversational languages and often has a digital thumbprint that distinguishes the writer. As a means to understand this…

Examines how personal versus formal writing tasks affect students' response to and comprehension of literary text. Finds that personal writing tasks enabled students to produce qualitatively more effective responses that tended to be more fluent and constructed with a wider range of response statements. (RS)