Teachers putting texting to use

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Teachers: Texting can be used as tool with teens

Texting, a favorite and seemingly instinctive activity for teens, has loomed over education and parenthood for several years. Many adults felt like it would mash proper English into the ground and was a distraction from serious learning.

The average number of texts by U.S. teens 13-17 has reached 2,900 a month, according to Nielsen, the media and marketing information company. And The New York Times reported in May that physicians and psychiatrists fear texting is taking a toll on teens' sleep patterns and ability to think for themselves.

But now some teachers in Charlotte and nationwide are seeking to harness its power and making peace with it. Researchers back this new approach with new evidence that texting teaches some positive language skills, and pragmatists argue that a war on texting is unwinnable.

for many students, schoolwork looks like this :)

It's nothing to be LOL about: Despite best efforts to keep school writing assignments formal, two-thirds of teens admit in a survey that emoticons and other informal styles have crept in.

(That's "laughing out loud," by the way -- or "BTW.")

The Pew Internet and American Life Project, in a study released Thursday, also found that teens who keep blogs or use social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace have a greater tendency to slip nonstandard elements into assignments.

How can cyberbullies be stopped?

The episodes are hurtful, ugly -- and sometimes deadly. In Lakeland, Fla., a group of teenagers records the beating of another teen. The local sheriff says the attack was in retaliation for online trash-talking by the victim.

At a high school near Pittsburgh, an anonymous e-mail list features sexually explicit rankings of 25 female students, names and photos included.

In suburban Dardenne Prairie, Mo., near St. Louis, 13-year-old Megan Meier hangs herself after receiving cruel messages on the social-networking site MySpace.

Falling between two worlds

The debate over immigration often dwells on keeping illegal immigrants from slipping into the country, but when it comes to Hispanic youths who are already here, an opposite concern arises -- too many are slipping away.

Hispanic youths, some born here, some who entered the country illegally but are growing up here, are at increasing risk of drifting into self-destructive and criminal behavior as they try to find their place in a culture that is at turns ambivalent and resistant about accepting them, according to those who have studied trends among Hispanic immigrants.

In North Carolina, a host of indicators show that many immigrant teens are not succeeding:

Telling teen tales

Laurie Halse Anderson is the author who teens have known since her first novel, "Speak," was published a decade ago.

The story of a high school girl who goes mute after being sexually abused, "Speak" was a National Book Award finalist and Printz honor book, and it launched Anderson as a writer who spoke to and for teens.

Her reputation among teen readers held as she published award-winning novels and picture books.