Cursive Comeback

[joehill]

http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2014/06/27/ive-seen-the-writing-on-the-wall-and-it-is-in-cursive/

 

This is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by the Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign about a summer program for teaching children cursive. The project is motivated by the fact that students who can't write cursive usually don't read it well, either, and are then cut off from all sorts of literary and historical materials. (And not just archival materials. Last year, I finally gave up on writing on the board in cursive in the university-level mathematics courses I teach, because the students couldn't read it. My handwriting is generally regarded as pretty clear; it was definitely the cursive.) Not to mention the benefits for understanding, etc., with handwritten notes.

 

And the article says that "Activities during the camp will include lessons in developing one’s own signature, a short course in handwriting analysis, writing cursive on the campus plaza with sidewalk chalk, courses in the history of writing implements, mixing up recipes for invisible ink, and a 'cursed cursive' contest in which students compete to concoct their best Shakespearean curse before writing it elegantly in cursive on the blackboard. The prize? A fountain pen, of course!"

[maus930]

an encouraging note

[puppydawg]

This is an interesting approach to solving the issue. I agree that cursive is endangered, I have only recently starting using it again myself. I had to look up some of the capital letters... I was talking with my girlfriend regarding her niece and nephew, and how their generation cannot, or in the next 5-10 years, read cursive script. They are 6 and 9, respectively. Almost on cue, the 6 year old asked what my girlfriend had written in a card - she had signed her own name. I had a few friends ask "why are you re-learning cursive script? what's the point?" These are 30 year olds, they haven't used cursive writing in at least a decade. I figure that soon, i'll be able to write whatever I want in cursive, and leave it out, and it'll be a coded message. I don't even have to learn a code

[Arabit]

Great news, I always have to ask people who borrow my notes if they can read cursive or not. 95% of the time they can't

[Paddler]

I think that the complaint about not being able to read cursive is a straw man. It should only take a person about a half hour to learn to read cursive.

 

Back in my college days, I was required to take a year of foreign language courses. I selected German. After the year was up, I wanted to keep up my skills with the language and so I bought some books of German short stories. They were written in blackletter. It took me about a half hour of study before I could read it.

 

If someone can't figure out how to read cursive, either the writing is ilegible or the person is too lazy to work at it for a little while.

[prf5]

Scientific evidence about the relationship between cursive writing and good educational outcomes is far from conclusive. There is a world of difference between what we actually know and what some folks would like to believe. The research librarian had one interpretation about the student who said that she doesn't do cursive. Another interpretation is that this student wasn't interested in reading the material. Another is that she has a cognitive or attention deficit. (Yes, even at Illinois' flagship public university.) The key questions, yet unanswered, are whether students who aren't familiar with cursive writing have the ability to learn to read it on their own or to learn with the assistance of an instructor, and whether the ability to read cursive is associated with higher educational achievement after taking other factors into account. In any case, there's no evidence I am aware of that whether you "do" cursive or not is related to whether you use a pen or pencil, or to your skills at using a keyboard.

[rwilsonedn]

This man must be stopped! Clearly he is setting innocent kids down a slippery slope that will lead them to become manuscript scribes and illuminators, only to be enslaved in this alleged library director's manuscript-forging boiler room. I can see right through his evil scheme.

Or from another point of view, what a brilliant approach to motivating students.

Sidewalk graffiti: it makes me wonder if the best way to preserve cursive handwriting might be to ban it.

ron

[inkstainedruth]

I think this article was discussed in another thread awhile back. It's a neat program in theory. But I wonder what the demographics of the kids in the program are (and how much of the interest in the program was from them vs. that of their parents).

@rwilsonedn -- your suggestion on "banning" cursive was a hoot!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Anne-Sophie]

One thing to remember is that Steve Jobs studied calligraphy. Apple had really wonderful fonts, including a beautiful cursive one, on its earlier word processing program.

 

This is why we have fonts on computers, which makes using them more fun.

 

And, there are plenty of evidence that cursive writing develops motor coordination, so do bicycling and ballet.

 

I am also going to add needleworks in the mix.

 

 

But... if people don't want to learn cursive, it is their right.

 

 

They are missing out on the wonderful Penmanship sub-forum and they won't be competing with students who want to study history.

 

Reading primary documents is a must for that subject, especially for the era before typewriters were used to type official documents.

 

Many illustrious persons had and most probably still have handwritten correspondence between each other.

 

Handwritten draft of fiction or non fiction works are fascinating for students of literature, film, social studies, even scientific works in the lab or in the field.

 

 

I am very passionate about the subject, because, I love to study all kind of things.

 

Access to scanned primary, handwriten source is endlessly fascinating and a great way to be a life long learner.