Death of cursive
I haven't written in cursive in 20 years. I tried it just for fun on a dinner napkin a few weeks ago, and was horrified at the results. I've basically forgotten how to do it. Now I know I'm not alone.
When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.
Cool. I can't say I'll miss it. The truth is, my penmanship never looked great, which is the main reason I switched to printing in the first place. Now I can barely write cursive at all. But it seems like I'm probably in the majority, and no longer need to feel guilty about it. I wonder if someday I'll similarly get belated justification for the funny way I hold my pen.
Comments
Cursive writing skills degraded during the CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, and were only rescued by the block writing skills put in place by the Republican Congress starting with Newt Gingrich.
BUSH has taken the Clinton Handwriting Recession and brought back the state of Cursive in half the time pundits estimated!
Posted by: Bailey Hankins | October 11, 2006 10:38 AM
I always write in cursive. My handwriting is abominable, and only I can read it, which is why I do it.
Posted by: DBK | October 11, 2006 12:05 PM
Mine is a mixture of both. Still somewhat legible.
Posted by: Malcolm | October 11, 2006 12:37 PM
If I practice really hard and my handwriting gets really good, does that make me smarter than other people, or just slower to communicate?
I used to get stickers on my tests from my 5th grade teacher if my penmanship passed muster. I really liked getting those stickers.
Posted by: OTTami | October 13, 2006 01:52 PM