Rhetorical Analysis: Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter In recent years, the rushing tide of typing has overwhelmed the once necessary skill of handwriting. As the days pass by computers and other 21st century electronics are becoming more and more a part human lives. Gone are the constant needs for pen and paper, often times all that is needed for notetaking is a laptop and working fingers. A recent article published by Anne Trubek titled “Handwriting Just Doesn’t Matter” analyzes the importance of handwriting in the computerized world that is lived in today, as well as through a discussion on the teaching of cursive and other handwriting exercises in schools. Using a mix of pathos, logos, and minor amounts of ethos, Trubek is able to comprehensively convince her audience that handwriting is not as important or useful a skill as it used to be. Trubek wishes to provide her audience with a convincing argument that shows how handwriting in this time is inferior to typing on computers. In other words, her primary purpose is to illustrate the idea of focusing on typing automaticity (the ability to type without looking at keys) in schools over handwriting automaticity (the ability to write without conscious effort). This is seen when Trubek explains how if “…the goal of public education is to prepare students to become successful, employable adults, typing is inarguably more useful than handwriting.” (Trubek, 2016, para. 4) Trubek argues that if public schools are working
For many students in America, cursive writing is as foreign as the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egypt. In most colleges and universities, more students are increasingly using tablet computers
Elementary schools no longer require students to memorize multiplication tables. Learning how to perform complex calculations using long division is passé. Many schools no longer teach children cursive writing, and none teach, much less emphasize, the importance of good penmanship. The advent of the age of technology is the cause…but is it to blame? Many people might believe that by excluding some of the things that educators thought were important skills fifty years ago, makes today’s young adults ill-educated. However, elementary students of the 1950’s were not taught keyboarding or the use of the internet, or about the basic structure of DNA, or cyber-bullying or global warming either. Such subjects,
Writing with pen and paper stimulates the brain like nothing else,even in this time of e-mails, messages , tweets.In fact,to improve your brain development in the areas of thinking, languaje and working memory you can learn to write cursive.The handwriting in cursive
Technology is developing at such a rapid pace, that keyboards may soon be replaced for something even more convenient. Although it is important that education looks forward, and develops with the times, it is also important for education to provide students with tools to connect with and study the past. Although cursive is no longer utilized in the United States for writing out important documents or essays, it was utilized in documents of the past. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence were both written out in beautiful and free-flowing cursive. In these cases, cursive is utilized
A fifteen year old straight “A” student walked into the Department of Motor Vehicles with her mother. The excitement of becoming a driver for the first time quickly faded when the girl was required to sign her name. The girl was mortified that she didn’t know how. The mother couldn’t help but wonder if her child’s generation was filled with cursive illiterates? Cursive writing should be a curriculum requirement for grade school students not only because it is required on legal documents but it is important to understand information written in cursive and it improves penmanship.
I write now in the time between breakfast and the exposition of the day’s lessons. The screen that preaches knowledge to me is likely to awaken within the next few minutes, to warble its electronic voice soon animatedly to me. It shall then introduce me to new words by projecting a dancing display of letters and reciting the syllables aloud. I am then to repeat with my voice, and then to write, to scribble the letters on the screen with my fingers to the best of my ability. The weight of my own digits is somewhat cumbersome, and I cannot help but marvel at the fine print that the screen produces, seemingly without any effort at all.
Analysing Ms.Nancy’s kindergarten handwriting lessons, we can conclude that they are completely developmentally inappropriate. She expects children of the age of four years to copy sentences from storybooks to lined paper for 90 minutes without a break, informing parents that it is developmentally appropriate because an educated person is required to have these skills. This suggests that she does not account for the next 13 years of formal education, where students will develop skills to make them an “educated person”. Furthermore we must analyse the reason that Ms. Nancy is assigning this task to her students. With her suggestion that it’s a skill appropriate for an educated person then we can assume that her reason has an academic link. This
Reading, writing, and translating cursive is essential for anyone, not just exclusively students. “Many are in their 20’s and can’t sign their names or read original historical documents, including letters from their grandparents.” This statement highlights the fact that people are not learning from cursive and are also missing out on the importance of this writing. Common knowledge suggests that every single person
Technology is taking over writing in school. Passage number two says that students are required to turn in typed essays and papaers. Typing classes are growing in schools because we right less and less to prepare us how to type. Most jobs today always send out emails and type up documents to other employees. Paasage number two also states that with technogoly growing everyday that even keyboards might not even exsist anymore.
After a long week of the same routine, it was decided that I should know how to write my name without the dots to guide me. I got to work quickly because I was eager to prove I could. When my work was done and I took a good look at it, I thought it was terrible. Every letter was deformed and unstable. The letters made it look as if my hand was trembling with each move I made. When I saw my brother’s handwriting on his paper and I looked at mine, I knew I had to try again. My writing was humiliating and I wanted to hide it. The letter K was the worst I ever had ever seen . Each line the that made up the letter overlapped and extended one another, it was not recognizable.
In today's society most every piece of writing is typed instead of written with hand. Recently however UCL computer scientists have found a new software for computers that would combine typing and handwriting. This new software is called My Text in Your Handwriting. At this time this software has the ability to examine someone's handwriting and then compose any text in that person's handwriting. The hope for this software is to help those who can not write any more to be able to still send out handwritten
Unbeknownst to the average American, a war is being waged across the country. The war has nothing to do with bombs or terrorists, and everything to do with the future. The war being waged is over the reconsideration of traditional elementary school curriculum and the removal of cursive writing instruction in favor of technology. That technology, while already heavily adopted, is still relatively new in the span of human history and is being implemented rapidly despite the absence of scientific understanding regarding the functioning of the developing brain, and it is for this reason that instruction of cursive writing needs to be reinstated into elementary school curriculum until studies can be conducted to determine that its loss will not have an impact on elementary aged children.
Children should learn handwriting in general, but most importantly learn how to write cursive. The problem that is getting in the way of children learning handwriting is computers and the advanced technologies that prevent us from practicing our own personal hand. Many schools such as Flint’s Carpenter Road Elementary School received a grant that gave them free computers, and TV’s for their classroom. This school, like many others is now focusing on teaching children to type and computer skills they will need later on. Although typing is good to know, there are many downsides and faults to this seemingly innovative and progressive skill.
Nelson Mandela, an anti-apartheid revolutionary and former President of South Africa says, “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world” (Mandela Web). Since the dawn of man, weapons have been used to correct unwanted circumstances. Education and intellect are radical weapons of advancement that use peaceful means to usher in a change in circumstances. Being the basis of intellect and the most powerful tool of change humans hold, education must continually adapt to meet the needs of those who utilize it. Due to this constant growth, many intellectual battles occur within the realm of education itself. These battles are fought in our local, state, and national governments, being won through vigorous debate. Over the last several years, a major battle regarding cursive handwriting instruction’s place in public elementary schools arose. While this debate may seem rudimentary at first glance, it is in fact a crucial part of education. Even though some applaud the writing technique for its boost in efficient brain development, cursive handwriting should not be taught in elementary schools, because cursive is no longer imperative for most careers, print handwriting develops the brain with similar efficiency while being just as useful to students as cursive, and teaching cursive harms some students while wasting treasured time which could be used teaching more desirable skills such as computer keyboarding.
There is still both enthusiasm for and doubts about the usage of educational technology in the classroom. However, the integration of technology in reading instruction has kept up with the movements and changes in the field of the reading and writing curriculum. While faced with many book shortages, this article also gives ideas for strengthening the skill of students in writing and reading instruction. It suggests that students participate in “invisible writing” as a sort of pre-writing activity. Through this, students will turn the monitor of the computer off for approximately one to three minutes, so that they cannot see what they are typing. Students have reported that this exercise has helped them develop fluency, has freed them from continuously checking their mistakes and losing their train of thought, and has also increased their interest in viewing what they had to say. Thus, students will have learned how to produce more thoughtfully enriched texts that teachers can build on through other types of instruction.