A Scribe’s Musings: Cursive writing a curse or blessing?

A sermon handwritten by Larry Schneider in 1995. (Larry Schneider/Special to the Chronicle) Article content A common view expressed on social media is that schools should “bring back” cursive writing to the curriculum. Advertisement 2 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content Those of us educated in the Ontario school system for generations learned how to print their letters and to cursively scribe them early in our school careers. When I began my teaching career in 1980 this was still the norm. Around 1990 classroom computers, or access to labs within our schools, became fairly common, and more and more writing was done using this amazing new technology. As a teacher of writing, this development was one of which I have always been of two minds. Secondary school classes of the day were streamed into academic, applied and basic streams. The students in the academic program tended to be fairly keen, hard workers for whom doing well academically was a priority, who tended to read more often, and therefore developed writing skills proficiently Advertisement 3 This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Article content They were incredibly tolerant of writing, as I taught them, to first create point form notes, then a rough draft, which I or their fellow students would edit, then perhaps a more polished draft, and then a final good copy which was submitted for evaluation. Around 1990, we teachers of language discovered “the writing folder” in which all versions of a paper had to be submitted, to prevent plagiarism, and to ensure that none of the important steps were skipped. This system worked fairly well for my advanced classes. The development of educational computers were a terrific boon to my applied and basic level students, as all of the various drafts or version could be forged from their initial notes and roughest drafts, then edited by me, often at length, then perfected using the same draft, making changes, improvements, introducing more complex and descriptive vocabulary, and myriad other positives. Advertisement 4 This advertisement has not […]

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