My Freshman Comp Student Didn’t Recognize the Term ‘Word Processor’

Most of my students use MS-Word, but maybe a third use Google Docs (that’s a big increase lately) and a handful (but a bigger handful) use Pages.

Today during a writing conference, a freshman comp student blinked in confusion when I asked her to “take me to your word processor.”

I tried again. “Open up a blank page so I can write something.”

That made perfect sense to her, and we moved on.

My intention is not to mock her. She is a smart and capable student, who apparently had never needed a term to describe “a tool for composing, editing, and storing documents.”