If kids are writing so many emails, why are this generations writing skills so poor?

E-mails are often treated as casual notes, not formal writing. There's a big difference between firing off an e-mail and sitting down to write a "real" letter with a pen or pencil and paper. Also, kids tend to treat e-mails like text messages, in that shorthand, grammar and spelling errors, et cetera, are perfectly acceptable.

The school where I live actually graduates high schoolers who can't read anything but one- and two-syllable words, if that. No. Really.

We're also moving away from diagramming sentences, or otherwise learning how parts of speech properly work, among other things. How can kids write properly if they are not taught how to do so?

Kids like to communicate, but they also like things to be done quick, and they love multitasking. That translates into bad grammar :-).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.