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Is It Time For Cursive To Die

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Is It Time For Cursive To Die

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api-258831894
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Informational Essay and Personal Essay

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them

Is It Time for
Cursive to Die?

Cursive is disappearing from schools, and some people


wonder if were losing a link to the past. BY LAUREN TARSHIS

ou love writing in cursive, right?Your pen

names and not much else. Cursive, it seems, is in danger

flies across the page, creating words so

of disappearing from schoolsand our lives.

beautiful you want to frame them.


Wait, what did you say? Your cursive
looks like the scribbles of a 2-year-old?

Dont worry. Today, many people believe that cursive

is a relic of the past, and that the ability to use it is way


down on the list of whats important.
Until recently, though, writing
in cursive was considered one
of the most valuable skills
taught in school. Kids

A Sign of Growing Up
Cursive writing, which is any handwriting with letters
joined together with loops, has been used for centuries.
Cursive graffiti covers the crumbling walls
of ancient Pompeii. Christopher
Columbus wrote of his
adventures in the
Americas in cursive.

spent months clutching

Thomas Jefferson

their pencils, practicing

penned one of our

tricky qs and strange-

countrys most

looking zs until they

famous documents,

were perfect. In fact,

the Declaration of

students were graded

Independence, in

on their penmanship

glorious cursive.

the way you are graded


on math.

iStockPhoto.com

But would giving up cursive be a mistake?

Its easy to see


why this form of

Well, not anymore.

handwriting became

According to USA

so popular. It is more

Today, 41 states no

efficient than printing

longer require students

because you dont

to learn cursive. Many

have to lift

kids learn to sign their

your pen off

SCOPE.scholastic.com OCTOBER 2014

19

the page as often. Its less

cursive should be spent

messy, too, or at least it

learning to read and

used to be. Before Magic

write computer-

Markers and sparkly

programming languages.

pencils, people used

After all, isnt it more

fragile quill pens and

useful to know how to

bottles of ink. Writing

code apps and websites

in the smooth flow of


cursive meant fewer
broken quill points and
ink stains.

than to write app and


This would
have been you . . .
if youd been a
student in 1950.

website without lifting


your pen?
Yet there are many

Cursive has

compelling reasons for

been taught in America since the 18th century. For

keeping cursive alive. For one thing, it builds muscles

generations, mastering this form of handwriting was

in your hands. More importantly, studies have found

part of growing up, like learning to ride a bike. Look

that writing by hand improves thinking skills. Students

through your parents scrapbooks or memory boxes

who write out their essays before typing them tend to

their old postcards from camp, book reports, love letters.

express more and deeper ideas. Then there is the fact

Youll see their life histories written out in cursive.

that handwriting is a form of personal expression. No


two peoples handwriting is alike, but everyones typing

Who Needs It?

is pretty much the same.

Over the past decade, a powerful force has


generalforever: technology. Today, we Skype, e-mail,

Left Behind
Throughout human history, inventions have made

and text instead of writing letters. College students

our lives more convenient, more interesting, more

take notes on laptops rather than on paper. Tourists

connected. There is no question that Snapchat and

post selfies from the Grand Canyon instead of mailing

texting have transformed our relationships, enabling us


to connect with each other more easily

postcards.

and frequently. Not so long ago, sending

Its no wonder that many school


leaders dont see cursive as a 21st-

letters was the best way to keep in touch

century skill. Besides, schools are under

with friends and family.


With each new technology, we move

enormous pressure to help students


develop the math and reading skills

forward, but we also leave something

they need to succeed on tests and

behind. As handwriting disappears,

in college. Algebra? Vital. Reading

will we lose our connection to the past?

nonfiction? Vital. Writing in cursive?

Will we become shallow thinkers who

Ehmaybe not.
In fact, the ability to write in cursive
may soon be the equivalent of playing
a musical instrument: an elective
art form rather than a required skill.
Perhaps the time once devoted to

20

Scholastic Scope OCTOBER 2014

Good Handwriting =
Good Person?
In the 19th century, people
thought that to become a person
of integrity, you had to develop
good handwriting. Sloppy writers
were suspected of having low
moral character.

cant express anything deeper than a


140-character tweet? Or will we find
exciting new ways to express ourselves?
When it comes to cursive, we have to
decide: Should it be left in the past, or
written into our future?

Archive Photos Creative/Getty Images (top); The Granger Collection/New York (bottom)

threatened to wipe out cursiveand handwriting in

PERSONAL ESSAY

Why I Keep My Letters


They connect me to the people I love

ix years before my son


Peter left for college, my
oldest sister, Anne-Marie,
died of cancer. I have a phone
message from her on an old
answering machine that I take
out when I want to hear her
voice. I have home movies of
her, moments spent laughing
with my sons, hamming things
up for the camera. I have
photos galore. And I have my
memories of our conversations.
I can remember the summer
nights we sat talking on the
front steps of our house when
we were growing up.
But it is the written words
she left me, postcards and
birthday cards and letters
exchanged over my 40-plus
years of being her sister, that
allow me to hold in my hand
the substance of who she was.
After Anne-Marie died,
I pulled out every bit of
correspondence Id saved from
her. I also found what shed
sent to my four sons over the
years. For each of the boys,
I want to create a box filled
with the correspondence they
received from Anne-Marie,
along with photos of each of
them with her. These boxes
will allow my children to know,
all over again, their aunt who

By Nina Sankovitch

loved them so very much.


Letters are the history of our
lives. Almost everyone I know has
letters saved away somewhere.
When I ask people why they keep
these letters, the answer is always
the same. Because the letters are
a link, a connection. My friends
say things like the writer is with
me, to hold and cherish or I
like seeing her handwriting and
remembering the time and place
she was writing about or every
time I reread these letters from
loved ones, they appear in front of
me, smiling, laughing.
When the letters we save
are from people who are dead,
whether for years or for centuries,
we are preserving them as a
presence in our lives. One friend
used her grandmothers letters
to write a eulogy, presenting
her vividly for everyone at the
funeral service. Another friend
describes the letters her mother
left behind as a wonderful gift,
keeping the bond between them
alive.
The cards Anne-Marie sent still
speak to me. Whether celebrating
an event (By the time you get
this youll be a real lawyer
congratulations) or expressing
a known fact (Paris is greatI
dont know why we ever left) or
admonishing me to keep a secret

(I was so exhausted I fainted


outside of the theater. Dont tell
Mama), the physical reality of
those words means even more
to me now than when I first
got them in the mail.
Letters provide not only a
bridge to the people from our
past but also a bridge to those
in the present, but too far
away for us to touch and see
every day. Yes, I am getting
texts from my son Peter off
at college, short bursts of
information: taking Swedish
and the treasured love u. But
these 10-character messages
are not enough to salve how
much I miss him.
A letter offers balm for the
ache of missing Peter, because
it is a physical connection.
A letter gives me a feel for
his mood not only in what
he writes but also in how he
writes.
A letter brings him home
again.

From SIGNED, SEALED, DELIVERED: CELEBRATING THE JOYS OF LETTER WRITING by Nina Sankovitch. Copyright 2014 by Nina Sankovitch. Published by Simon and Schuster.

Some
that cu
writin
by tec
have v
Should
your o
both p

iStockPhoto.com

writing contest
Some say that letter writing and cursive writing are lost arts. Do these lost arts have value in
todays society? Should they be preserved? Support your ideas with details from each text. Send
your response to LETTER CONTEST. Five winners will get A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty.

Get this
activity
Online

scope.scholastic.com OCTOBER 2014

21

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