U rite GR8.

• Author: Lee, Jennifer 8.
• Position: Education

In this age of cell-phone text messaging, rapid-fire e-mailing, and online instant messaging, a new style of shorthand writing is evolving and making its way through the teen scene--and into school papers. Some teachers think the trend toward shortening words--U for you, CUZ for because, L8 for late, and so on--has gotten out of hand.

One teacher in Indianapolis, Indiana, recently saw the sentence, "B4 we perform, ppl have 2 practice" (translation: before we perform, people have to practice) on a student assignment. She wondered if her eyesight had gone--or if her students had lost their minds.

"Kids should know the difference" between schoolwork and socializing, complains Jacqueline Harding, an eighth-grade English teacher at Viking Middle School in Gurnee, Illinois. "They...