Some lament loss of cursive but teachers shrug

The Evansville Courier Press ^ | October 12, 2006 | Margaret Pressler

[Clintonfatigued]

The computer keyborad helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to kill off longhand.

When handwritten essays were intorduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

[Clemenza]

Cursive, a monumental waste of productive classroom time.

[groanup]

I use cursive for my grocery list.

In the future, when all of our kids have forgotten cursive, they will have to go to the grocery store without a list if the power goes out.

[bannie]

:-) I don't have to act!

[moog]

Oops, bad choice of words on my part. Yeah, we idiots have to strive for acceptance in this cruel world where everyone just either thinks you're a fool or laughs at you.

[supercat]

A person writing cursive never takes their pen from the paper during the writing of a words, hence it is also faster than manuscript. Let's hope the teachers wake up and start teaching it again.

When using sensible letterforms, a semi-cursive style is faster than a detached style. Unfortunately, many schools have for years been teaching students to write "cursive" with letterforms that are hard to write quickly, and become illegible if written inaccurately. For example, the word "brick" is written by starting at the lower left, connecting the "b" to the "r" at mid-height, and connecting the "r" to the "i" at the baseline. The only place the "r" touches the baseline is at the right.

A more sensible style, as advocated by Kate Gladstone among others, would start the "b" at the top, exit it at the bottom, and then exit the "r" at the top (with a slight lift).

[brytlea]

I write much faster in cursive. I don't understand why so many people print instead altho I noticed that trend when I was teaching HS a couple of years ago.
susie

[brytlea]

Actually, I occasionally wish I remembered how to read Roman numerals, for instance when I am trying to figure out the year an old book was published. Fortunately there is a website that will translate roman numerals, but I wish I could read them. There's not anything wrong with knowing things other than what we use every day.
susie

[supercat]

I write much faster in cursive. I don't understand why so many people print instead altho I noticed that trend when I was teaching HS a couple of years ago.

How would you produce the word "brick"? Would the left part resemble more

  /\
 |  |
 |  |           .
 |  |__     _         _
 |  |\_\___/ |  |    / \
 |  |   |    |  |   |
  \/    |    |  |   |
  /\___/      \/ \_/ \__/

or

 |
 |          .
 |        _     __
 |/ \   |/  |  /
 |   |  |   | |
 |   |  |   | |
 | _/__/|   |  \__/

[brytlea]

I would put a k at the end (and how did you do that on the computer??)
susie

[Clintonfatigued]

One thing that I blame for this is the amount of homework. There is so much, kids use computers just to get it all done in time. Also, assignments which are written are done in such a hurry to meet deadlines, the quality of penmanship inevitably deteriorates.

[supercat]

I would put a k at the end (and how did you do that on the computer??)

Sorry, I got lazy, and my interest was more with the "bri" and if/how it's connected to the next letter. Though the "k" raises a point of interest.

I just fired up an ancient text editor.

The key things I was curious about:

1. Is the vertical stroke of the "b" designed to be a loop or a straight line? Using straight lines will be faster than using loops, will be more legible than loops done consistently, and will be much more legible than a mixture of open and non-open loops.
2. In what direction is the 'bowl' of the "b" drawn, and how does it connect to the next letter?
3. Is the vertical stroke of the "r" on the right or left, and how does that character tie to the next?
4. When is the dot on the "i" drawn?

BTW, one thing I've found lately is that my style of drawing the digit "8" has changed in the last year or so. Not sure why, but nowadays I usually make two circles, with two separate strokes. I used to draw "8"'s with a single stroke. Weird.

[caseinpoint]

Leftie here too. I was blessed, though, to become a special project of my elementary school principal who, believe it or not, minored in penmanship. He took me on and taught me penmanship as I went to his office every afternoon to spent time writing the cursive alphabet over and over. I was the only good kid who was constantly in the principal's office ;o). Anyway, when I was in junior high, I won first place in the school penmanship contest. The prize was a neato transistor radio, as I recall. I had excellent penmanship in school and was the one to go to for copies of class notes. That is, until I took the bar exam review course: two months of three-hour lectures five days a week after a full day of work. My handwriting never truly recovered although I can still do it if I concentrate.

I, too, occasionally smudged (and I hated the spiral notebooks). What's interesting is that I learned to write backwards cursive as fast as my forward and, in fact, faster and easier because I didn't have to drag my fist behind me: a leftie writing backwards is like a rightie writing forward. (Still hate those spiral notebooks though. Now the only spirals I buy are top-bound.)

[sarasota]

My granddaughter is in a school in Asheville NC where they don't teach printing, only cursive. I find that strange in today's environment and would think it would make reading a difficult learning experience.

[sarasota]

Can't they still print with paper and pencil?

[RightWhale]

I solved the spiral notebook problem by writing on the left-hand sheet and going from the back to the front of the book.
One penmanship teacher said lefties should turn the sheet the other way, hold the pen pointing over the left-hand shoulder, and the result was fingers dragging through fresh ink. I tried writing backwards in addition, but the teacher was not amused. :)

[brytlea]

I'm not sure about the rest, because I guess I don't pay much attention to how I write, and in fact, when I look at my own writing it doesn't seem very consistant (altho I'm sure a handwriting expert could tell it was from the same person).
Anyway, your point about the 8 is interesting, because I have ALSO started doing 2 circles, which makes a prettier, rounder 8, but it makes me feel like a small child just learning to write! I wonder if it's not because we see those nice rounded 8s on the computer screen all the time??? ;)
Who knows. I know that the computer has made my typing much sloppier and more error prone than I used to be, since it's so easy to fix mistakes, and in fact I've become far lazier about fixing them when I'm typing online.
Personally, I hate to see us lose ANY skills that are not really that difficult for most to master. We should all know how to write in both cursive and in print, just because, like we should all know how to spell as well as possible, even tho (yeah, I know that's a lazy habit I've gotten into, using tho and thru!) most of us can decipher even poorly spelled writings.
I guess it's the teacher in me. On the other hand, who amongst us needs to know algebra!? (yes, that's a joke, and yes, I struggle with higher math!)
susie

[Professional Engineer]

paid $260 a month

Just about what I paid for my first HP calculator.

[brytlea]

Wow, I've never heard of not starting with printing. It seems like that sould make it more difficult for the kids to learn to read (since most texts are in printing. Also, in watching the 4th grade class I'm working with now as they are moving from printing to cursive I cannot see how they could master cursive early on. It appears to take more coordination. (sorry, I am really a high school teacher, and so this is all new stuff to me, I don't really know how writing skill is taught yet).
susie

[RightWhale]

it would make reading a difficult

Once tried to read a handwritten German letter that looked more or less like this '^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^'. Might as well have been in Russian.

[brytlea]

I'm not a leftie, but I had a leftie friend, who would curl her hand around and lift it off the paper as she wrote, so she would not drag it thru the ink. It looked very akward and uncomfortable, but her writing was very legible.
susie