random poll

[rm]

Super busy. Am suddenly curious about this. Apparently most kids entering college in the US this year don't know how to write in cursive. I suspect this is less a sign of the apocalypse than it feels like to me.

So, tell me things (as usual, poll is un-scientific and reflects my biases and experiences (and 49-year-olds can choose which age category they like better!) -- if the boxes don't work, my apologies and comments super welcome.):

[Poll #1607173]

Comments

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

I haven't commented because you mentioned American - would non-Americans filling the poll skew it?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nah, I tried to actually be neutral about it. I think the only thing that would skew it hard is people who grew up in countries where their dominant schooling language doesn't have cursive and print varieties, but since we fail at science here anyway. Have at.

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

But: Male, 28, suburban.

Cursive was taight to all in primary school, about aged 6-8 I think. By about age 7 it was assumed everything we wrote would be in "joined up writing" (as it's more commonly referred to in England). Not writing everything in joined-up by the time you were 10 was unheard of in my school. To such a degree that I have great trouble printing letters, I have to think very carefully or my muscle memory naturally joins it all up

We had a few classes on computers but no-one was taught to type - but it seemed to be something most of us picked up in a rough and ready way

No-one was taught to drive at school - driving was always private and extra-curricular

Cook/sew/woodwork/electronics. My secondary school has a class called "technology" that alternated between these things per term from 12-14. There was no gender differentiation - but I have to say I don't think any of these classes taught even the basics very well. At 15-16 (GCSEs)we had to choose one to specialise in for our GCSEs (I picked electronics since it had more theroy than the others and I sucked at it marginally less than the others). There was no gender basis for the choices - you could choose what you want. BUT 90% of woodwork/electronics was male and 90% of the sewing/cooking was female. We never had any kind of metalworking class

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Here from someone or other on my list, and glad to read this comment re: "joined-up writing". I'm the same age and nationality as you, my educational experience is similar, and I have a hard time understanding this whole post because the idea of "cursive" and "print" as two alternative ways to write just doesn't compute for me. Handwriting just IS joined-up writing, as far as I'm concerned; what else would it be? You might print for clarity (I usually translate "print" as "block capitals" for such things as writing on blackboards where illlegible handwriting is inappropriate, because I automatically join my letters, like you), but "writing" is by definition joined-up. I actually teach college freshmen in the US now, and I have noticed that many of them don't join their letters, but I kind of figured they were trying to be legible as the only handwriting I see is exams, really. I am wondering whether children are taught to write differently in primary school now and ir British kids now print....

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Oh, fascinating. This echoes something my Moscow-born ex said about his expectations about writing.

(He now writes atrocious but legible English print.)

[sparkindarkness.livejournal.com]

Very much this. I actually had trouble fitting "cursive" into my mind, not because I didn't know what it meant per se, but the idea that you need a word for it - because writing is joined up. It's like the definition - if it's hand written, it's joint up. The idea of anyone over the age of, say, 6 printing words (I mean, it's not even considered writing - it's printing) doesn't fit in my head.

Exactly on the bloc capitals - when you "print" it's for forms and things - and that usually comes with block capitals

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Right, yes -- I am still wondering if I actually understand the meaning of the word "cursive" as it is being used in the post! Is there a special kind of writing people are talking about learning here, that we don't teach in the UK? I think of the way my grandmother wrote, with copper plate-ish letters. But my dictionary says it just means "joined up"... *still wondering if I'm missing something*

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Looks like this: http://www.mcpasd.k12.wi.us/sunsetweb/resources/cursive.cfm

How does that compare to what you're thinking?

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

Looks a bit old-fashioned and formal, though familiar enough –– I learned more or less that with the fancy loopy bits cut off, and IIRC it was just framed as 'first you learned your letters, now here is how to join them together' rather than a different set of letter forms, which it seems like they're understood as here? I suspect my generation was taught a hybrid of old-fashioned cursive and general-purpose print, under the general heading of "writing." :)

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

D'Nealian! That's the one we learned (rural upper midwest, early 80s) and it was taught, and I think received, as an entirely different thing from printing. Students were actively discouraged from making cursive letter forms or joining their letters before cursive instruction started, for fear that it would keep them from learning to print properly. They are different scripts and different skills.

[gement.livejournal.com]

It is the idealized formal form most grade schoolers are/were taught in the US - actual practice is less formal as time goes on. Here is the idealized formal 'printing' form: http://www.westsideelementaryschool.com/kindergarten.htm

This page of 'handwriting' fonts has an approximate selection of some things I expect to see if a USian is printing text less than formally. Particularly the font named Journal is close to mine in both slant and letter proportion, as well as the general shape of letters. http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=603

I will sometimes use small block caps, but I picked that up in technical contexts in college, not from popular USian standards. If I am writing a note for someone else to read, though, it feels more formal in a business context to print than to write in cursive. I know this is absurd. In the context of a hand-written note, cursive feels more formal. Perhaps in a business context, cursive feels like it will be read as too pretentious or ornamented. It's an odd cultural distinction, the more I think about it.

I am not sure which way is faster for me to write. It may depend on context. I'll try to pay attention in future.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I just found this fascinating blog entry that illuminates my confusion about this situation:

http://elementaryteacher.wordpress.com/2007/10/28/how-american-cursive-appears-to-the-british/

My handwriting does look quite a bit like the image.

We never learned separate "cursive" letter forms at all, just the "print" alphabet you linked to. We were shown how to link the letters, I remember, but it wasn't an enormously hard-and-fast thing if your writing was legible (I got sent to do extra practice because mine wasn't...)

[gement.livejournal.com]

Wow. Given the mental contortions I went through trying to wrap my mind around the relationship between a print Z and a cursive Z (there is one, but it's tricky and reminds me a lot of the Kipling Just So story about the invention of writing), I spent a moment boggling as to how one could get any kind of joined up writing having only learned the print alphabet. Then I read the blog entry and it made more sense. Kind of a cheerful anarchy, it sounds like.

It also sounds like it's much more effective for getting people to keep complying with it. People stop using cursive, as far as I can tell, because those who are less utterly picky and obsessive than I am find all the little rules of spacing and slant and proportion (none of which I remember, but all of which I know I internalized into my handwriting to a certain extent) seem insane and arbitrary. Grade schoolers are pretty good at resisting that sort of thing.

[heyiya.livejournal.com]

I was so confused by that Kipling story because the 'r' wasn't a real 'r'! I did, however, discover the cursize 'z' on my own and start using it just because I thought it was cool. I also -- I just remembered now -- had a rebellious habit of looping my 'y's and 'g's that my teachers were always telling me off about because it was harder to read... So I guess I resisted my sensibly anarchic print-based style of joined up writing by being seduced by the romance of cursive?

(I've been living in the US for 4 years and I just learned about this cultural difference now, btw. I am totally fascinated :) )

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

That is fascinating. The British 'joined-up writing' in that post is what I would call printing.