ABSTRACT
Will writing continue to play a significant role in the political, professional, cultural, and business affairs of our society during the last quarter of this century? That question is an especially important one for teachers of English, because the answer will determine, among other things, what they will teach in the classroom. If writing is a vanishing and dispensable art, as Marshall McLuhan and others have claimed, it would be a waste of effort for English teachers to exercise their students in an anachronistic craft. It is difficult enough to motivate students to expend the effort needed to acquire even a minimum competency in writing; it would be utterly futile to try to induce students to acquire the skill if it has no pay-off value in the real world.
