Reminds me of the teacher, several years ago, who didn't like the way I graded her first year English classes' papers. Too many red marks, the little dears would be devastated if she handed them back, no matter I included positive suggestions and noted that she had some damn fine talent in her classes, they just needed a little direction. We're talking about their first essays of the year...how were they going to improve without being told what needed correcting or polishing?

I despise text messaging. If they understand the concept they can write it out in plain English or whatever their language is. There is enough deterioration of the language without this kind of encouragement.