Writing Lessons & Advice: Cursive
The majority of my lessons focus on the art of writing. The written medium has so much to unpack and follow. However, today’s lesson gravitates towards the act of writing, or more specifically an old technique called cursive writing.
Those who attended school before 2010 were taught and used cursive to some extent. Around that point, learning how to use computer technology and the internet were decided as the bigger priorities in education. As of February 2022, only twenty-one states require cursive writing in public school curriculum. By extension, some generations may grow up not knowing how to read or use it either.
Computer technology is here to stay and is always changing. So current and future generations need to have some working knowledge with it. On the other hand, clicking and typing cannot compete with cursive writing's benefits. More still, cursive writing continues to have use and importance in society despite the digital age in which we live.
For one thing, cursive was essentially “a default font” throughout most of history. When writing was done with fragile quill pens and ink, the way cursive loops and flows letters together allowed for less pen lifting and sometimes even faster writing speeds. In which case, cursive was utilized when penning many historical documents, like the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Gettysburg Address, The Dead Sea Scrolls, right down to letters written by Civil War Soldiers.
Not to mention, cursive font provides an artistic, vintage, or sophisticated flair to many logos of current, popular companies, like: Chick-fil-a, Disney, Ford, Coca-cola, Kleenex, Kellog’s, Fender, Hallmark, Walgreens, Barbie, and Instagram--just to scratch the surface.
Even a handful of other languages have cursive renditions of their scripts, like Russian, French, Greek, Bengali, Roman, Egyptian, and Chinese.
I watched a reel on Instagram recently where a young person said they thought a signature was something given to you by the post office when you got to a certain age. The ignorance makes me cringe. In reality, it's just a cursive form of one’s name. Where is a signature used?
Typically on legal or financial documents like:
contracts, applications, forms,
checks and bills,
wills, property deeds, marriage/divorce paperwork,
driver’s licenses, social security cards, government-issued identifications or documentations.
Writing or signing in cursive is a formality with a lot of these documents (like honorifics) and electronic formats may not always be doable. A cursive, handwritten signature can be a personal thing too—like an autograph. A “computerized signature” won’t have all the personality of a hand-written one and I could see them being a little more difficult to prove an incident of forgery if you're at a loss.
From the mechanical and learning standpoint, cursive writing engages certain fine motor skills, muscle memory, and mental activity. Studies have shown memory recall improves when cursive is used, as do handwriting and spelling skills. Cursive’s distinct lettering and strokes are also helpful to students with learning challenges such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and difficulties with attention.
Luckily, I found cursive writing fun once I got the hang of it! I used it almost exclusively throughout middle school and I still frequently use it in my office job (albeit just to initial or sign off on forms). If you or others you know want to incorporate more cursive into your life, here are my recommendations for teaching/learning it:
Hope this gives you some insight and interest in keeping cursive alive!
If there’s a topic you want me to cover in the future, you’re welcome to reach out to me on the web chat features or socials!
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