Will My Children Be Able to Read This?

Daniel Stauffer

Professor Kramer

CAS 137

31 October 2016
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A page from John Jenkinss The Art of Writing, Reduced to a Plain and Easy System (Smatter).

The letters of Spencerian Script (Rainis).

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The letters of the Palmer method (Bloom).

A page from a book teaching Marjorie Wises printing method (Bloom).

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DNealian and Zaner-Bloser printing (Simply Charlotte Mason).

DNealian and Zaner-Bloser cursive (Simply Charlotte Mason).

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Daniel Stauffer

Professor Kramer

CAS 137

31 October 2016

Will My Children Be Able to Read This?

A basketball signed by Michael Jordan can be sold for upwards of $2,000, a Babe Ruth

signed baseball can be worth as much as $388,000, and a show-used guitar with Jimi Hendrixs

autograph can be had for a phenomenal $500,000 (World of Autographs). Letters from Jackie

Robinson to Dwight Eisenhower and from Frank Sinatra to George H.W. Bush are so valuable

that they can only be seen on display at the National Archives (Catlin). John Hancocks

signature on the Declaration of Independence is priceless. And a childs first handwritten

assignment, posted on the fridge after a long day at Kindergarten, may be just as priceless to his

or her parents. Handwriting is valuable! But it does not just have value because it flows from

the pens of famous people or those we love. Written communication with pen and paper is at

least a building block for other forms of communication and at most our preferred method of

personal and permanent discourse. Though it may seem like handwriting is a dying art in todays

digital age, the truth is that written communication has been a constantly evolving technique for

decades, changing and being redesigned to fit societys needs and own evolutions.

Admittedly, it can be very difficult to recognize changes in something that is measured

qualitatively--the availability of graphs and easily compared numbers makes observing

quantitative changes a much easier affair. But in the case of handwriting, we can use perhaps the

most reliable indicator of what is important to any given society: the skills and material taught to

children. In his TED talk at the University of Colorado on penmanship for the 21st century,
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Master Penman Jake Weidmann said, Like everything else in our culture, we declare its value

by what we teach or do not teach to our children (Weidmann). Indeed, we can tell what skills

and pieces of information are important to a culture because its elders teach them to their kids,

believing that they are the instruments that could prove useful in improving and expanding the

society.

Recently, the United States education system has gone through somewhat of an overhaul

in terms of what it wants taught to its young students. Since June of 2010, 42 of the fifty U.S.

states have agreed to abide by a new set of educational guidelines for Kindergarten through 12th

grade schools (Common Core Standards Initiative). The baselines, collectively known as the

Common Core State Standards Initiative, are meant to ensure that each United States student

learns the important skills and techniques to compete in a changing economy and world. Janet

B. Bray, Executive Director at the Association for Career and Technical Education, commented

on the guidelines: The K-12 standards work recognizes that students in the United States are

now competing in an international environment and will need to meet international benchmarks

to remain relevant in todays workplace (Bray). In other words, the new Common Core

standards lay out what the leaders of the United States are the skills necessary for its students to

be successful in a global economy. And for the first time in decades, national education

standards do not include teaching any form of cursive handwriting; in fact, the new benchmarks

only require legible handwriting to be taught in Kindergarten and first grade, at which point an

emphasis is placed on typing (The Comeback of Cursive). Many who oppose this change do so

for sentimental or patriotic reasons, asking questions like, What if our children cant read the

Declaration of Independence or Constitution in their original cursive? (Vox); they oppose what

they perceive as a break from tradition. In reality, though, shifting handwriting techniques and
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methods of teaching those skills are nothing new in the United States; permanent and written

communication has been a constantly evolving craft since the days of the founding fathers.

Just as most things in the early United States, handwriting, its use, and its instruction

were largely identical to their English predecessors. Interestingly, even in England, there had

been no attempt to condense a formal method of teaching penmanship. After all, the ability to

write was really only required of specific, noble factions--professionals, wealthy people,

merchants, secretaries, and clerks (Rodgers Siegel). Opportunities for personal penmanship

instruction, though, were far less scant in the fledgling American states. And so the need for a

concise, widespread handwriting technique presented itself. In 1791, a 36-year-old New England

school teacher by the name of John Jenkins created the first printed handwriting lessons, though

he didnt focus on creating a script for businessmen of the new country (Rodgers Siegel). In the

original 1791 printing of The Art of Writing, Reduced to a Plain and Easy System, Jenkins

predicted that if his pedagogical method and common script were widely adopted, they would

foster unity in the new but disjointed republic (Christen). He wanted to create a uniquely

American system of writing, which he thought could bring together a disordered and incohesive

population. In the revised second edition, Jenkins wrote that he believed his method would

democratize fine penmanship, bringing beauty and a traditional signifier of gentility and

respectability within reach of many more Americans, especially the nascent middle class

(Christen). To summarize, John Jenkins pioneered the first uniquely American handwriting

technique in response to his countrys needs.

Certainly, though, the new method could not have become successful if it did not include

some novel and innovative ideas. Barely more than a leaflet at just 32 pages, The Art of Writing,

Reduced to a Plain and Easy System, was meant to be a departure from teaching practices in
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England. Typically, British teachers would have students drill repeatedly on specific letters,

giving no pretense or explanation for what they wrote; Jenkins, in contrast, instructed students

to analyze the structure of letters carefully before writing them (Christen). By breaking down

letters into principal shapes, students could remember forms more accurately and even begin

learning penmanship at an earlier age. As the method spread, endorsements from other notable

New Englanders, like John Adams and John Hancock, springboarded The Art of Writing into

classrooms and homes across the young nation. By the release of his books second edition in

1813, Jenkinss method had become the American standard.

The next major iteration of American script came from the hand of businessman and

teacher Platt Rogers Spencer. In the early 1800s, as the United States began its foray into

industrialization, John Jenkinss method was rendered obsolete by the simpler, quicker

Spencerian Script. As a businessman, Spencer recognized the need for a font that would not be

such a significant hindrance in closing business deals. He compacted a simpler, oval-based script

that could be written very quickly, without sacrificing very much legibility (Weidmann). In

1850, Spencer opened a school and began teaching the method to a number of pupils who went

out and began their own instructional practices. When Spencer died in 1864, his children

decided to release their fathers previously unpublished teaching materials, titled The Spencerian

Key to Practical Penmanship (Robinson). With the spread of physical teaching materials,

Spencers script took over American pages, and it stayed there up until the early 1900s, when the

typewriter began to dominate the business world, and a new handwriting technique took over

personal forms of communication. Though its long gone from schoolbooks, Spencerian Script

can still be seen in the logos of Coca-Cola and the Ford Motor Company, lasting remembrances

of another font created to fulfill Americans needs.

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In the late nineteenth century, with the invention and distribution of the typewriter, the

still relatively laborious and time consuming Spencerian method became obsolete. At the time,

though, typewriters were still expensive and difficult to obtain, particularly for smaller business

and people who didnt make very much money (Polt). Through the 1880s, a designer by the

name of Austin Norman Palmer created the simplest and quickest American script yet. Focused

on businesses that wanted employees to write as fast as those on typewriters could type, he called

his first book in 1894 Palmers Guide to Business Writing (University of South Carolina). The

textbook enjoyed phenomenal success, selling over a million copies in 1912 and earning Palmer

a Gold Medal at the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1926 (Vitolo and Grimes).

By 1928, three out of every four American students were being taught by the Palmer Method in

schools, and even today, it fills the Christmas and birthday cards of grandparents to their

grandchildren. Though it was meant to speed up the writing of those in business, Palmers

technique had a huge influence on the way penmanship is taught even today. Palmers Guide

was the first to encourage students to practice writing individual letters in between two

horizontal lines on notebook paper; the procedure been a staple of Kindergarten classrooms and

handwriting books ever since. In summary, the Palmer Method improved upon previous

penmanship techniques to respond to a societal need for quicker handwriting.

Up to this point, students had been given the unenviable task of learning loopy,

complicated scripts without any kind of simple base. Part of the reason penmanship techniques

continued to get simpler was the fact that younger students lacked the fine motor skills to artfully

craft complicated words (Thornton). In 1922, English educator Marjorie Wise took up a position

at Columbia University and began to popularize the idea of printing. Vastly simpler than its

predecessors and not requiring developed fine motor skills in its students, manuscript writing
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gained adoption first at elite progressive private schools and then throughout the country

(Rodgers Siegel). The techniques true brilliance was its simplicity: Because manuscript

consisted of simple and discrete letter forms, even the clumsiest children could acquire a

serviceable hand in a matter of a few months (Thornton). At the time, no one envisioned

manuscript working its way into cursives domain of the business world--it was seen primarily as

a stepping stone for young children--but as the penmanship techniques taught around the country

continued to become more streamlined, Wises manuscript forced its way into many peoples

communication toolboxes.

The fact that children were able to start learning to print before they could start learning

to write in cursive presented an opportunity for someone to combine the simplicity of manuscript

with the elegance and speed of cursive. Two parties actually made significant headway in the

endeavor, taking similar approaches. The first contingent was Charles Paxton Zaner and Elmer

Ward Bloser, who together formed the Zaner-Bloser Company around 1900, though the

penmanship lessons they created did not catch on until decades after the beginning of their

partnership. The method Zaner & Bloser created, called The Zaner Method of Arm Movement

Writing, encouraged students to learn printing first and then move to the companys cursive

tutorials (Cohen). However, the forms were confusingly different, causing many who tried the

program to struggle. The companys printing was very simple, made up of straight lines and

exceedingly simple curves, but their cursive technique was complicated; instead of imitating

their print siblings, the cursive letters had few straight lines and many intricate curves (The

Comeback of Cursive). Competing with Zaner & Bloser was Donald Thurber and his DNealian

handwriting technique, released much later in 1978. Unlike the Zaner-Bloser method, DNealian

writing had very similar print and cursive forms; both had slanted yet simple letters, and there
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was an obvious connection between the two styles (Simply Charlotte Mason). Since its

introduction almost forty years ago, the DNealian method of handwriting has become the de

facto standard of United States schools, and its taught to nearly every student that learns

penmanship in the country (Vox). Though it truly is the gold standard of handwriting techniques,

DNealian penmanship faces a new threat to its relevance: Americans preference for typed

communication.

Just as the movements from John Jenkinss font to Spencerian Script and from

Spencerian Script to the Palmer Method represented shifts toward simpler, more convenient

communication methods, American migration to typed communication is also a grasp at

convenience. The fact that email has taken over much of our personal and business discourses is

undeniable; according to the Radicati Group, a technology market research firm based in Palo

Alto, California, worldwide in 2015, the number of emails sent and received per day totalled

over 205 billion (Radicati Group). Obviously many of those emails are spam and

advertisements that would have never been sent if they were required to be handwritten;

however, there is no doubt that a significant portion of those 205 billion were for the purpose of

personal communication--in other words, they were messages that could have been handwritten

and mailed but were not due to emails convenience and simplicity. With the decline in letters

sent with pen and paper, many fear that the simple skill of forming words on parchment will die

out, and, indeed, to some extent it has. In reality, though, our culture is simply at another

crossroads in the evolution of written communication.

In order to scrutinize the current state of written discourse in our culture, we of course

will look at the information taught to our students. Indeed, the fact that Common Core standards

only require the teaching of penmanship through first grade and do not even include
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requirements for cursive instruction shows us that the leaders of the United States do not believe

handwriting is as valuable a skill today as it once was. But paradigms shifts are not driven by

policy updates; nothing freely changes unless the new is preferable to the old. People would

have never abandoned Platt Rogers Spencers writing technique if the Palmer Method provided

no additional benefits. As for the preference of todays students, Americas youth have cast their

votes in one of their least favorite traditions: the College Boards Scholastic Aptitude Test. From

2005-2015, the popular test of college readiness required students to author an essay in 25

minutes, either supporting or refuting a given thesis. According to statistics published by the

College Board in 2006, only about fifteen percent of student essays written in the 2005-2006

testing cycle were penned in cursive, while the other 85 percent were composed in print (College

Board). Clearly, the college-bound generation of students prefers print to cursive. Its important

to recognize that this discrepancy is not a result of Common Core encouraging students to use

print; the new educational standards had not even been conceived when students took the 2005

and 2006 SAT tests. Students are dropping cursive in favor of printing based on their own

inclinations. These points considered, it seems like our culture is on the verge of another

significant step in the revision of written communication.

Although it may seem like a foregone conclusion that most Americans will soon prefer

typing, hold print as a backup, and drop cursive altogether, there are still parties who oppose the

shift and present arguments to keep cursive and reinforce the importance of writing by hand.

One such argument is a sentimental and patriotic one; some Americans are concerned that if

students are not taught cursive, theyll be unable to read the Declaration of Independence,

Constitution, and other significant early documents in their original cursive (Vox). Failing to

fully experience those papers could leave future generations disconnected from their American
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past. Aside from those citing a possible reduction in patriotic appreciation, there is another

group that believes there are cognitive development benefits to learning handwriting.

Researchers tested how college students performed when taking lecture notes by hand and by

laptop. While the laptop users took more notes, those who took outlines in notebooks tended to

fare better on tests of the material (The Comeback of Cursive). Neurophysiologists in Norway

and France have also discovered that the same parts of the brain are stimulated while reading and

handwriting, showing an intimate connection between reading and writing by hand (The

Comeback of Cursive). While those looking to move away from handwriting tout the

convenience of typing and printing, those who support the teaching of handwriting and cursive

also make compelling arguments.

Generally speaking, major changes in a societys thoughts and actions are well

documented. Shifts in the art of handwriting have not been so keenly perceived, though.

Through a number of major iterations, handwriting has evolved to serve the American publics

needs and preferences. From John Jenkinss earliest attempt at creating penmanship lessons to

Spencer, Palmer, Wise, the Zaner-Bloser Company, and Donald Thurber, the American people

have adopted the simpler, more effective, and more convenient writing approach. Penmanship

has evolved to fit the preferences of the countrys citizens, and at each turn, society has rewarded

the best solutions with relevance and widespread adoption. Todays population faces another

potential turning point in the course of handwriting history; we are charged with finding a

balance point between cursive, printing, and typing skills. And just as Americans have done for

centuries, this generation will choose the evolution of written communication that best fits its

needs.
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