Cursive’s return: masterstroke or silly?

I was thinking about how increasingly difficult it has become to maintain good penmanship in the internet era.

When I was in grammar school, just about all our writing was cursive as opposed to block letters, and students would take pride in their signatures. There even were required penmanship classes.

Now about the only time I handwrite my name, with wildly fluctuating results, is when I’m signing a credit card receipt or check, and I write far fewer of those because of electronic payments.

I understand they face the same issue in China, where it’s probably more dramatic because of the many strokes it can take to create a Chinese character.

At China Daily USA, we have the software that converts pinyin into Chinese characters, but users still do not have to make the strokes themselves, the keyboard does.

Now, the United States is witnessing a movement to bring back penmanship, long the purview of persnickety teachers.

Last year, Alabama and Louisiana passed laws mandating cursive proficiency in public schools, the latest of 14 states to require the connected, looping letters.

And last fall, the New York City public schools system, the country’s largest, encouraged the teaching of cursive.

In September, Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina distributed a teacher handbook on cursive. It cites research suggesting that fluent cursive helps students master spelling and sentence construction because they don’t have to think as much about forming letters.

While some 78 percent of advanced placement and National Writing Project teachers surveyed in 2013 by the Pew Research Center said digital tools such as the internet, social media and smartphones “encourage student creativity and personal expression”, 68 percent said the devices make students more likely to take shortcuts and not put effort into their writing.

California is one of the 14 states that require cursive.

“Print writing yes, they need to learn their ABCs, but whether it’s in block letters or cursive letters, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary,” cursive opponent Nisha Shah told ABC-TV’s San Francisco affiliate.

The ABC Facebook page on the topic received more than 7,000 likes and 600 pro and con comments.

“It’s (cursive) great for taking notes,” Andria Shafer said.

“It’s nice, but ultimately useless. Keyboard familiarity should be a requirement,” De-Ante Glover wrote.

Teachers are divided too, with some saying it would be disappointing if a student could not read the original US Declaration of Independence in cursive.

Speaking of that 1776 document, the signature of one of its signers, John Hancock, was so spectacular that it became a part of the American vernacular: “I just need your John Hancock on the dotted line.”

Still, we will continue to read all our text on digital devices and in print in block letters. So I think the return of cursive is somewhat sentimental.

It’s the artistic beauty of cursive writing, or calligraphy, that inspires. And then of course there’s old time’s sake, with some parents wanting their children to learn it because they themselves had to, hence connecting the generations.

Contact the writer at williamhennelly@ chinadailyusa.com