Handwriting and Education

Thu Oct 16 21:08:15 UTC 2003

I wonder if the treatment of handwriting in schools (particularly
elementary schools) is impacted by the cyber age.  I often hear people
speak about computer literacy.  With so much being done by typing these
days, I wonder if emphasis on handwriting is changing.  I had the worst
time with cursive writing--do they still come down on kids for that?

CL's question also made me think of an anecdote:

When I taught in New York City I had a student who was
terrified to write.  We were working on short stories in class and while
all the other students had composed a page or more he had not even
written a full sentence.  I was worried about him.  Later I learned that
his father, who was an immigrant from China, would chastise (sometimes
physically with a ruler on the hand) the boy at home when his writing was
not perfect.  The father explained his thoughts by saying that writing
must never be sloppy--it requires discipline.  He was taught this way by
his father (when learning Chinese characters) and so would he teach his
son.  This had an effect on the kid in that he was so concerned with accuracy
in writing letters that written fluency was tough for him.  An interesting
outcome of the convergent-divergent scrips continuum in the continua of
biliteracy--ideologies about writing can run deep and have a lasting
impact on biliterate development.  This is definitely the kind of thing
we should consider as educational linguists when trying to bridge home
and school language use and culturally situated literacy practices.

Francis

>
> C L F L M wrote:
>
> > Dear Prof Hornberger
> >
> > Hope you are well. I've recently come across two closely relevant
> > articles on handwriting in education today.
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3103421.stm
> > http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0310/15/a01-298601.htm
> >
> > While calligraphy (nowadays) might not seem to be quite directly
> > related to language education, handwriting, which perhaps used to be
> > part of literacy, now appears to be somewhat/somehow marginalized.
> > Would you think this might deserve educational linguists' attention?
> > Thank you.
> >
> > Best wishes
> >
> > C.L.
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> C L F L M wrote:<br>
> <blockquote type="cite"
>  cite="mid20031016151723.91615.qmail at web40708.mail.yahoo.com">
>   <div>Dear Prof Hornberger</div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div>Hope you are well. I've recently come across two closely
> relevant articles on handwriting in education today. </div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3103421.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3103421.stm</a></div>
>   <div><a
>  href="http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0310/15/a01-298601.htm">http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0310/15/a01-298601.htm</a></div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div>While calligraphy (nowadays) might not seem to be quite directly
> related to language education, handwriting, which perhaps used to be
> part of literacy, now appears to be somewhat/somehow marginalized.
> Would you think this might deserve educational linguists' attention?
> Thank you.</div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div>Best wishes</div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div>C.L.</div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <div> </div>
>   <hr size="1">Do you Yahoo!?<br>
>   <a
>  href="http://shopping.yahoo.com/?__yltc=s%3A150000443%2Cd%3A22708228%2Cslk%3Atext%2Csec%3Amail">The
> New Yahoo! Shopping</a> - with improved product search
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