Should Cursive Be Saved?
Consider the case of cursive — the looping letters of flowing script also known as handwriting — disappearing from schools, lost from love letters, and now relegated most often simply to signatures.
Thanks to computers, email, texting, and tweeting, the writing’s been on the wall for cursive for years. According to Kentucky’s Lexington Herald Leader, a local high school teacher who recently tried to reinvigorate it by awarding fountain pens to students said, “Some of them didn’t know what a fountain pen was.”
Supporters of cursive say there is a societal responsibility to keep it alive, and that much more than penmanship is at stake. It’s “a gift” said one university professor, a lifelong skill, the demise of which creates cultural deficits, like an inability to read historical documents. Without learning handwriting — with its slower, contemplative pace — children’s brains will “develop in a different way that no one has really thought through,” said a neuroplasticity expert.
But others say there is zero need to save a communication form which fails to prepare students for a practical future. “Do people need to be able to write? Of course,” said one online commenter, who continued, “Is cursive the best method? Probably not, given how few people use it on a daily basis.” “Teach your kid to type accurately and quickly,” one insisted, while another suggested, “Kids should be taught how to print, because it’s all they’ll ever need if they find themselves without a cell phone to text on, or a keyboard to type with.” And then there was this: “I think HELP is easier to read from the air in big printed block letters!”
Tell us what you think: Does we have a responsibility to save cursive? If so, why?
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Cursive hand writing
True that in our times today, technology dominates our lives. But i believe that THAT is definitely no excuse to forget the basics. Something as simple yet elegant as a cursive hand righting, a skill taught since ancient times in different corners of the world, should definitely be saved. I myself am able to write in cursive and I am proud of it. I also know that i shouldn’t but i take it quite personally when people say that cursive is a useless skill and i would think maybe those people don’t know how to write in cursive and thats why they do not know how to appreciate it.
Stephanie Kaye Ludena | 1 month ago
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Cursive Writing
I think that if people are going to comment on whether or not to keep cursive (proud of themselves for knowing cursive), perhaps they should also learn the fine art of spelling and capitalization!
Nicole | 1 month ago
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What about the english language...
How many times a day do you hear “yeah” or “uhuh” instead of YES?
Cursive is not going to be used much longer, that is okay in my book as the majority of people do not even call any longer, they text.
I believe there should be more emphasis on enunciation and speaking correctly than worry about writing in cursive.
Vix | 1 month ago
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well, use it or not.
There is no reason to argue about it. If the nature leaves safe, it’ll be saved. Cursive is not justa font, Cursive allows us to write fast and besides it’s cool. But of course you have to know how to print. Anyways, I’m saying, why don’t we save it?
Jason Lee | 1 month ago
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SAve Cursive
It is true that practicing cursive is good for the brain so if we allow our schools to disable this craft they are taking a great gift from our youngsters.
Yolanda Michelle Balka | 1 month ago
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Save it
Technology makes many things obsolete each day. But we shouldn’t allow it to wipe out those things which make us human. (No cursive? Does that mean we are not going to teach our children how to paint or sculpt because there are graphics? No pencils, pens or crayons because we have computers? How boring!!) Technology is great, but it there is no reason why we can’t continue to teach cursive along with proper English. Wipe out ebonics!!!! (I refuse to dignify that with a capital E). I learned both cursive and print when in grammar school. After all, you have to learn how to write before you can learn how to text.
Patricia | 1 month ago
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You can't delete cursive messages
A research librarian at Harvard told me that the new students there are unable to read primary source documents any more because they can’t read cursive. This renders our entire intellectual legacy a foreign language to our children. Worse, imagine how the historians of the future are going to verify the authenticity of any document they study if it has been typed. No more boxes of sacred documents in Grandma’s attic: everything will have been deleted or lost in a harddrive crash decades ago. Those who advocate letting cursive die are letting more than a skill die; they are divorcing us from the personal and intellectual legacies of the past… which is who we are as a people. Learning/teaching cursive may be far too difficult for the modern attention span, and it may not be indispensible to the individual, but the cultural glue it provides is extremely important for all of us. (And it correlates to higher SAT essay scores, too. It doesn’t matter if you can’t prove why…)
Lynn Hyde | 1 month ago
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cursive writting
i think that by cursive writting kids learn to have better pen-man ship
tessa mia martin | 1 month ago
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I'd hate to offend anyone...
I truly believe that cursive should be taught in every school system. I am currently attending T.R. Robinson High School in Florida and found that practically everyone at my school does not comprehend the cursive literacy. I have also been aware of the lack of spelling, grammar, and just the apprehension of new vocabulary and the lust for further advanced literature, such as works from well renowned writers (William Shakespeare, Publius Vergilius Maro
Virgil, Gaius Iulius Caesar, Stephen King, J.R.R. Tolkein, James Patterson, and various others) or even their lesser contrast.Cursive was taught to students not just for the benefit of sprucing up one’s penmanship but also as a way to help students think about what they are writing. Personally, I write in cursive as much as possible (and very proud of it) and have had little to no writing errors. Writing in cursive allows one to comprehend what they are writing rather than just writing it. My spelling has come along way because when I’m writing in cursive I have to think about how to write the word thus causing me to think about how it’s spelled. You’re probably going to try and contradict my statement with, “When you are writing in print, you are doing the exact same thing, right?” Wrong; when writing in print, one just allows the hand to flow freely causing one to create an abundance of writing failures even on such simple vocabulary.
Print is taught at a young age because it is easy. It is more comprehensive and quicker to learn. Everyone understands thoroughly the print aspect of writing making it much to plain, boring and simple. From my observations, I can conclude that those who cannot grasp the knowledge of cursive have minds of simplicity. There are, however, countless others who are very brilliant and wise but do not write in cursive, does that mean they can’t? No, not necessarily, they most likely don’t because they prefer not to. Yes, cursive takes time and effort to produce but is well worth it in the end.
With the comprehension of cursive comes the accuracy of spelling, with spelling comes new, foreign vocabulary, with vocabulary comes superb grammar, and with grammar comes the lost art of loving literature. Cursive is beautiful and beneficial and is becoming a dieing art along with several languages and arts. It’s depressing really how most of my generation is killing what little ancestry we have left. Many say that cursive is pointless and obscure to our society, but it’s our history and it’s what little we have left from them. Save this and much more can be save from it.
Laissez Faire!
Cassarah Chajkowski | 1 month ago
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Cursive letters
We love cursive letters.
Hannah Nicole Stevenson | 1 month ago
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