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The upper and lower case for handwriting By Vicki Cox

Cursive "Q" is dead. It resembled the number two so the post office killed it. But nobody really cares. For that matter, handwriting itself seems in danger of eminent demise. For decades, it's been ambushed by new technology. The gold-tipped fountain pen and ink bottle from which elaborate loops and curves flowed were replaced by ball point pens. They, in turn, were replaced by felt tip markers which were, in turn, replaced by typewriters. Now, computer and cell phones threaten to be handwriting's undoing. On the one hand, some say good riddance. But on the other, proponents cite good reasons to keep handwriting in the classroom.

The case against handwriting

Many believe handwriting has no place in a society where speed and technology dominate students' lives. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, 90 percent of Americans between the ages of 5 and 17 use computers. At home, the computer is the most important machine in the house. If the stove doesn't work, there's carryout Chinese. But without the computer, the entire family loses communication, shopping, entertainment and research. Not utilizing computers in the classroom seems short sighted.

"We need to make sure they'll be ready for what's going to happen in 2020 or 2030," says Katie Van Sluys, DePaul University professor and president of the Whole Language Umbrella, a conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. "Handwriting is increasingly something people do only when they need to make a note to themselves rather than communicate with others."

For Mary Dockery, language arts teacher in Pike County R-3, the computer makes sense in her composition and literature classes.

"We're a computer-oriented class," she says. "If you're going to teach any kind of writing, it's all about turning that paper around and getting it back into the student's hands. I can grade much quicker if I don't have to figure out what I call artistic, that is, unreadable, handwriting."

The Clopton High teacher also uses the computer lab for in-house essays in her college-bound literature class. "If we've finished the ‘Idylls of the King,' I'll have them write three essays of 350 words each. They have to think fast and type fast. I grade on content and their composition skills."

Yet, despite the speed and clarity the computer provides, even it may become passé. The popularity of the cell phone and its access to the Internet increases daily. The new world of text messaging where "CUL8TR" translates into "See you later" and "BRB" means "Be right back" makes it tough to explain the merits of longhand.

Dockery deals with texting daily. "The rule is that students cannot have cell phones at school," she says. "But every kid has one. They text all the time. I literally had to check two girls' purses at the door. They'd put their hands in their purse and text in class."

Besides electronic technology, standardized testing dealt handwriting a serious blow after the 1983 "A Nation at Risk" report and 2002's No Child Left Behind Act. When student progress and teacher accountability hinge on the ever-present achievement test, handwriting doesn't rise very high on the list of priorities.

"The simple fact is that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to," says Steve Graham, special education and literacy professor at Vanderbilt University. "Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore."

No grade level is exempt. While kindergartners and first graders must acquire manuscript skills, they're mastering communication arts and mathematics objectives too.

At the beginning of the year, Casey's Kuhjuergen's first-grade classes at Mark Twain Elementary in Rolla 31 spend 45 minutes a day on handwriting. They practice strokes, write words, and copy sentences. Gradually instruction time decreases to 25 minutes and then ceases — unless Kuhjuergen notices a pressing need to review technique. By year's end, the 6-year-olds must be able to write a research report.

"We have so many things we have to fit into the schedule," says Kuhjuergen. "We can't devote as much time as maybe we should."

The case for handwriting

Even bombarded with computers and texting outside the classroom, handwriting advocates can't see them completely replacing the pen and pencil. Their strongest argument is Samuel Freedman's. He disputes the assumption, in a New York Times article that "somehow, magically, every pupil, rich or poor, will have a computer available at all times."

It just isn't so. Students still depend on handwriting to complete daily assignments, take lecture notes and complete tests. There are times when handwriting is just plain more convenient than its technological rivals. It doesn't, after all, require a cell tower or charged batteries to record a telephone number or person's name, write a check or fill out a job application.

Good and/or bad handwriting does, in fact, have unintended consequences. Steve Graham in a recent issue of American Educator says studies have shown that "readers form judgments, positive or negative, about the quality of text, based on its legibility. When teachers are asked to rate multiple versions of the same text...neatly written versions of the paper are assigned higher marks for overall quality of writing than are versions with poorer penmanship."

He also links handwriting difficulties with weaknesses in grammar and content in elementary students. The brain simply can't do two things at the same time: concentrate on forming letters and compose an idea. Because it chooses the mechanical over the theoretical, composition suffers. Having difficulty with handwriting skills makes students reluctant to write. Avoiding writing increases the possibility they will be poor composers. The opposite is also true. Graham says, "students' sentence-writing skills, the amount they write, and the quality of their writing all improve with their handwriting."

Doctors' notoriously bad handwriting has had disastrous consequences. According to the Institute of Medicine, prescription errors kill 7,000 Americans every year because the majority of the more than three billion prescriptions are written by hand. Poor penmanship is responsible for an estimated 6 percent of all hospital medication errors, says the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Once handwriting ceased to be a marker of the cultured and educated upper class, children were taught cursive. Then in the 1920s, educators thought because manuscript writing was closer to what students read in textbooks, it should be taught instead. The switch was on. Even today, handwriting double dips into children's time and energy. They learn manuscript and cursive. Mastering both is a laborious process. Later on, left to their own preferences, adults develop a kind of hybrid handwriting, a cross between both styles.

Still, Becky Bond, third-grade teacher at Cedar Ridge Elementary in Columbia 93 thinks cursive instruction is necessary.

"It's a life skill that sometime in a child's education needs to be taught," she says. "Will it be a life skill this generation will use forever — probably not. But kids need to have the option of cursive. At some time, they'll develop some kind of handwriting. It might as well be right."

Somehow, children regard being able to write in cursive a rite of passage from being "little" to being "a big kid."

"Seventy-five percent of my kids are very excited to learn it. They can't wait," Bond says. "The fun part about it is when they say ‘Look, look! I wrote my name in cursive'. "

For four to five months, Bond devotes approximately 20 minutes three times a week to handwriting. Then, students review and practice it in short assignments. Since they aren't ready to switch to it full time, they return to writing in manuscript.

However, connecting letters in a continuous stroke makes cursive much faster than manuscript writing. Kate Gladstone, a handwriting specialist in Albany, N.Y., believes high school and college students cannot take accurate notes from a lecture by printing. To keep up with the speaker, the student needs to write 100 words per minute; printing can only produce 30.

But perhaps handwriting's strongest asset may not be mechanical at all. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." doesn't really work on a print out. What people are, and the emotions they feel, sometimes require a more personal touch than technology provides. Handwriting experts have identified more than 5,000 personality traits that are revealed through handwriting. These include how someone organizes his life, his social skills, and thinking styles. Handwriting analysis is sometimes used in pre-employment screening. Lawyers consider handwriting when selecting potential jurors.

The case for or against handwriting may never reach a black-and-white conclusion. With each new technology, society may think it will finally bury handwriting in a pile of circuitry. But the alternative handwriting offers to communicating, and the intangibles that come with it, ensure it will survive. Even the electronic world acknowledges its value. Some software programs now offer a hybrid of both worlds. They scan the user's handwriting and turn it into a font that can be typed from the computer. What would John Hancock say about that?