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Penmanship: A Dying Art?
CBS News ^ | August 12, 2005 | Rachel Konrad

Posted on 08/12/2005 7:17:04 AM PDT by RosieCotton

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Penmanship: A Dying Art?
SAN MATEO, Calif., June 9, 2003


Monique McGowan sharpens a No. 2 pencil, straightens her posture and sharply slants her notebook to prepare for her weekly lesson in cursive.

She and other third graders at Horrall Elementary School have perfected ascenders and descenders, and their letters' tails and legs hit the appropriate base lines - even the tricky capitals G, Q and S.

But Monique, who plays games on her dad's laptop at home, says she'd rather punch a keyboard than write cursive.

"Computers are better," the 9-year-old says, blonde pony tail bobbing behind her. "With typing, you don't have to erase when you make a mistake. You just hit delete, so it's a lot easier."


Such attitudes are worrying to a growing number of parents, educators and historians, who fear that computers are speeding the demise of a uniquely American form of expression. Handwriting experts fear that the wild popularity of e-mail, instant messages and other electronic communication, particularly among kids, could erase cursive within a few decades.

At technology-savvy Horrall Elementary - where students take keyboard lessons in third grade, precisely when they learn cursive - Monique's teacher, Ed Boell, is fighting the trend. He refuses to give extra points when students turn in laser-printed homework assignments with fancy computer fonts, and he urges kids to send handwritten letters to parents and friends.

Still, about half his students use computers for some assignments, up every year since the late 1990s. He ends his cursive lesson with a warning:

"The truth is, boys and girls, even if you write a lot of e-mail on the computer, you will always need to write things down on paper at some point in your life," Boell says. "The letters you write to people are beautiful, and they'll cherish them forever. Have any of you ever received an e-mail that you cherished?"

The students eagerly shout, "No!" and return to loops and curves.

Since switching from print to the more free-flowing handwriting earlier this year, Boell's students are writing faster and more legibly.

But in many other classrooms, traditional cursive is on its way out. So many students have trouble with it that teachers are increasingly adopting a simpler style known as Italic or "print cursive."

Online discussion forums for teachers estimate that as many as 7 percent of third graders are using Italic, whose printed letters are "semi-connected" with small tails. It's not as loopy or slanted as the 20th-century style developed by Austin Norman Palmer and adopted as a standard in schools nationwide.

Sue Bolton at Kings Mountain Elementary School in Woodside teaches the Palmer Method to her second- and third-graders, but many of her students turn in homework with touches of Italic they've picked up from siblings or other teachers.



"They've got good handwriting now, and they love cursive," Bolton says as her students filter in from recess. "But it wouldn't surprise me if they just walked around with their little keyboards and typed everything a few years from now."

According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 use computers. It's not uncommon for kids to type 20 or 30 words per minute by the time they leave elementary school.

The trend pervades Silicon Valley, where many schools have computer labs and kids gravitate toward careers in the computer industry. But some say students' struggles with cursive have reached alarming proportions nationwide.

Michael Sull, a 54-year-old artist in Overland Park, Kan., says today's third graders have not developed proper forearm and hand musculature, seated posture or mental discipline. The former president of the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting says keyboards, joysticks and cell phone touch pads have ruined kids' ability to hold a pencil properly, let alone write legibly.

"Penmanship these days is thought of as a vestigial organ because it's not translated into dollars, like computer skills," says Sull, who honed his writing skills under Paul O'Hara, a pre-eminent 20th century penman.

"If you need to relay information immediately and have just a half-second to grab anything, maybe just a napkin, penmanship is so valuable," Sull says. "It doesn't rely on batteries or power. It's like breathing - it's always with you."

Parents who pride themselves on their penmanship often bemoan their children's cursive - particularly when they can't read sloppy notes or notice that their kids increasingly turn in homework via e-mail. Many adults pine for a return to the Palmer Method or even its fancier predecessor, Spencerian.

"Cursive was so character-defining when I was in school," says Amy Greene, whose 9-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son prefer keyboards to cursive in their Palo Alto classrooms. "The way you wrote something was considered part of your inner being, your core, your worth. ... Now it's considered an anachronism."


Cursive's ultimate fate is unknown. Few statistics mark its demise. Some passionate penmen say it won't go the way of the feather quill pen, noting that the style survived electric typewriters.

Nabeel Khaliq, an 11-year-old sixth-grader from Mississauga, Ontario, comes from a family of cursive enthusiasts and can't imagine not writing. He took first place in his age category in the 2002 World Handwriting Contest, sponsored by the Albany, N.Y.-based Handwriting for Humanity club.

"It must be a natural thing that my family has, except for my brother," Nabeel says. "I write all of my rough drafts by hand."

Still, Nabeel's cursive is rivaled only by his typing. He types 40 words per minute - he was the fastest typist in fifth grade, a close second this year to a classmate who hit 50 words per minute.

"I e-mail my cousins in Pakistan and chat on MSN," Nabeel said, referring to Microsoft's popular instant messenger service. "If I had the choice, I'd rather do it on the computer."




By Rachel Konrad © MMIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


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TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: cursive; handwriting; penmanship
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To: RosieCotton

You didn't do anything wrong, the url gives a currrent date. Looks to me as if CBS is pulling up out-dated trivia to post.


61 posted on 08/12/2005 8:21:24 AM PDT by YaYa123 (@Neatness and legibility still count to me.com)
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To: YaYa123

OK...I'm new to posting articles, so I'm terrified of doing something wrong!

I really don't wanna get zotted, even temporarily. ;-)


62 posted on 08/12/2005 8:22:42 AM PDT by RosieCotton ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - G. K. Chesterton)
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To: RosieCotton
Not in this Homeschool it isn't.
This week my son is copying the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address in both printing and cursive.
He is very proud of being able to write nicely but a little upset he cannot write exactly like John Hancock.
63 posted on 08/12/2005 8:26:04 AM PDT by msnimje
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To: RosieCotton

Im glad you're overcoming your fear to post articles for the rest of us to read. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many goofs I've made.


64 posted on 08/12/2005 8:26:28 AM PDT by YaYa123 (@)
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To: YaYa123

I don't disagree with any of that. I also believe that writing things out on paper forces one to think through their ideas in a way much different from when one uses word processing.

Before I "met" the pc, I used to write my papers on a pad. I'd write out lengthy sections, then go back later to revise using separate pages. Eventually I'd type the whole thing up. Nowadays, however, because I'm able to instantly edit using word processing, I'm constantly second guessing every sentence, every paragraph, every page. Word processing, far from improving my creative "flow," has actually impeded it!


65 posted on 08/12/2005 8:30:28 AM PDT by zook
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To: joylyn
I, too, learned cursive in the 1950s, but my penmanship was never beyond acceptable. My class was the first to use ballpoint pens rather than ink pens and ink wells -- remember how all the 1950s desks had holes in the upper right hand corner for an ink bottle! Our teachers rather disapproved and made us use the dip pens and ink part of the time anyway.

My father, who learned cursive in high school in the 1920s, wrote with a lovely hand. My grandfather, educated in Europe before the turn of the 20th century, wrote in what's called an "Italian chancery" hand -- beautiful, but it took real getting used to. I still have a dip pen, with a mother of pearl stem (I guess you can't call it a barrel if it's not a fountain pen) which my grandmother on my mother's side used; I recall her writing with it as late as 1960.

66 posted on 08/12/2005 8:30:38 AM PDT by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Arabiam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: msnimje
He is very proud of being able to write nicely but a little upset he cannot write exactly like John Hancock.

Not to nitpick, but didn't Thomas Jefferson write it? I thought Hancock was merely(!!) the first to sign it.

67 posted on 08/12/2005 8:43:28 AM PDT by Steve0113 (Stay to the far right to get by.)
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To: RosieCotton

Clare and Joseph HATE writing cursive, and their penmanship has suffered since they left school. I've just ordered some 'Italic' handwriting books to see if they'd be easier and make more sense to them.


68 posted on 08/12/2005 8:55:20 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: SuziQ

It's hopeless... I did those Italic books, but it's too slow for taking notes in class and everything else I type. I just don't write by hand, so my handwriting won't improve.

It's legible, though, which my dad's isn't. Mom has nice cursive, the rest of us are hopeless. Homeschoolers are usually bad at it, yes, but public schools seem to be realizing how little it matters too.


69 posted on 08/12/2005 8:57:39 AM PDT by JenB (Don't play with nurse sharks, vote Democrat, or sue God)
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To: Glenn; RosieCotton

*snicker* The only "D" I ever got in my life was in Penmanship, in Catholic School, where it was really important. My Daddy laughed his head off because his handwriting was awful! Mama got mad at him because she wanted to stress how bad it was that I got such a grade, and her writing was lovely! I did get better, though, when I write fast, it's terrible!


70 posted on 08/12/2005 8:57:44 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: RosieCotton

Penmenship was only taught through 3rd grade at my son's public school in GA. When we began to homeschool in 5th grade it was reintroduced. ;)


71 posted on 08/12/2005 8:57:58 AM PDT by kalee
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To: Malacoda
the Sisters of the Holy Chalkboard Pointer at Our Lady of Pain,

ROTFL!

72 posted on 08/12/2005 8:58:52 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: SuziQ
This is the revised version of the one I've used. It's geared towards adults, and the example words and paragraphs are mostly about the history of writing - actually interesting!

Admittedly the cover of the book is pretty ugly. I guess pretty handwriting only gets you so far...

73 posted on 08/12/2005 8:59:35 AM PDT by RosieCotton ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - G. K. Chesterton)
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To: zook

I lived in a small town, so our school district always had us pick up our workbooks and other stuff at the high school a couple of weeks before school started. I always thought it was really neat to go to the high school when I was in elementary school. They had all of supplies laid out by grade. I can't remember if my parents had to pay a fee or not. I just remember the look, smell and feel of brand new Crayola crayons and that neat blue pen! And who can forget the yellow, lined paper with wood chips imbedded in it!! LOL!!


74 posted on 08/12/2005 9:02:59 AM PDT by Polyxene (For where God built a church, there the Devil would also build a chapel - Martin Luther)
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To: YaYa123

I'd add to that list: it increases others' opinons of you, especially those with whom you share written communication.


75 posted on 08/12/2005 9:06:20 AM PDT by Teacher317
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To: July 4th

I just ordered a book about Italic handwriting for my kids!


76 posted on 08/12/2005 9:11:56 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: RosieCotton

Hah! That's the one I'd had ordered!! I also got the Level F books for Clare and Joseph. My friend in Japan had it for her kids, and it looked pretty good!


77 posted on 08/12/2005 9:19:42 AM PDT by SuziQ
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To: SuziQ

Oh, cool! Hope you enjoy it! I liked it...but then I was self-motivated.

I didn't realize just how much it had changed my handwriting until recently I went back and was looking through some of my old journals and could barely read my own writing. It was atrocious! It still ain't perfect, but it's legible, which is the most important thing.


78 posted on 08/12/2005 9:26:13 AM PDT by RosieCotton ("Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - G. K. Chesterton)
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To: JRios1968
But, I studied engineering in college, which forced me to adapt my handwriting...nowadays it's mostly a variation of All Caps, in different sizes, according to whether the letter is supposed to be upper- or lower-case.

Same here (EE). I hate cursive to the MAX. Takes too long, gives me writer's cramp, and at the end of it I'll still have to type it anyway. I do all caps, except for case-sensitive stuff like email addresses.

Curse cursive. It's probably a commie plot anyway (/sarcasm).

79 posted on 08/12/2005 9:32:17 AM PDT by adx (Why's it called "tourist season" if you ain't allowed to shoot 'em?)
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To: RosieCotton
The same thing is happening in Japan. I was told by Japanese co-workers when I was in Tokyo that they would forget how to draw certain characters (the way they are drawn is important -- there is a particular stroke order to each character) because they are used to just typing them on the computer.

Me? I generally print all caps. My handwriting has always been awful and my signature isn't comprehensible.

80 posted on 08/12/2005 10:46:04 AM PDT by Question_Assumptions
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