Putting pencil to paper
By Deb GauArticle Photos
The first time RTR third-grade teacher Mary Wabeke heard the question, she was confused.
"Sometimes my students will ask, 'Do we have to write this in cursive, or can we write in English?'" said Wabeke, laughing. "They don't know what manuscript is. The first time they said it, I said, 'What?'"
The cursive style of handwriting, with its looping connected letters, isn't really a foreign language, although area teachers say it might be getting a little rarer. Penmanship is still taught in elementary schools, but with computers and typed communication like e-mail becoming more common, there's not as much emphasis on it as there used to be.
"Penmanship used to be such a big deal," said RTR Elementary teacher Jeanne Norgaard. But when Wabeke recently made an Internet search looking for teaching sources on the subject, she said, "There were so many things online talking about schools that didn't teach cursive anymore."
Area elementary school students are still being taught how to write in cursive, generally starting around second or third grade. However, once kids reach middle and high school, handwriting style is often left up to preference. Reports or special projects may be done on computers.
"There's not been a big (penmanship) trend in high school that I could see," said Megan Klumper, who teaches English at RTR High School. "We work more on concepts, and making sure they get the ideas down."
At the School of St. Peter in Canby, both typewritten and handwritten reports hang on the walls. Teacher Tani Peterson said her class practices penmanship each week, through daily lessons and by copying a Bible verse.
"We have a set of words that we work on," said student Jenna Kockelman.
Examples of good or improved handwriting can get picked for a "Handwriting of the Week" award, Peterson said. Learning cursive can sometimes be a hard process for students, Peterson said.
"I find myself writing a lot of 'slow downs' when I'm going over their work," she said. She's also started taking a look at her own handwriting. "It really makes you slow down and concentrate."
St. Peter's student Justin Cleveland said once he got in the habit of writing cursive, it was hard to stop.
"When I try to write in manuscript, it turns out half cursive," he said.
Second-grade students at Lake Benton School aren't finished learning the cursive alphabet yet, said teacher Alissa Christianson, so this week they were writing cursive but printing the capital letters.
"It's kind of a big thing to use (cursive) capital letters," Christianson said. The kids were anxious to learn how to write "like grown-ups."
"It's something that Mom and Dad do, and something their older siblings know about," she said.
The students said they thought it was fun to get to learn new letters.
"My favorite is 'y,' said Nicholas Martinez.
Autumn Mendro said she wanted to put her cursive skills to good use.
"Now I can write a letter to my grandma, all the way down in Arizona," Mendro said.
At RTR Elementary, Norgaard said students in the third and fourth grades use cursive writing every day, and she only allows typing on take-home projects. But when Wabeke taught sixth grade, she said she allowed her students to print if they wanted.
"I tell them to write what I can read," she said. About half the students, especially boys, would choose to stick with manuscript letters.
One factor that could really change the way students write, Klumper and Wabeke said, is the culture created by Internet chat and text messaging. Both teachers said they see texting slang creeping into students' work "all the time."
"You see things like 'B4' instead of 'before.' I would never think of doing something like that when I was a kid," Wabeke said.
"It's almost like they'll have to consciously choose between formal and informal writing," Klumper said.
Sometimes, kids don't even have to have spent time texting to use the lingo, as Christianson found out while her second graders practiced letter-writing this week.
"'We are BFF.' What does that mean?" she asked, while helping proofread one letter.
"It means best friends forever," the kids answered.
While they may not write in cursive all the time, older students at Lake Benton said they thought it was still important to have good handwriting.
"If you don't write neatly, the teacher might not be able to read it," sixth grader Heath Schindler said.
"You could just have to do it over," added classmate McKenzie DeRuyter.
|
EdmundFitzgerald
|
|
|---|---|
|
04-04-09 5:36 PM
|
Learning cursive handwriting is as important in today’s world as knowing how to tune your vehicle’s carburetor.
|