Cursive is a style of writing that connects letters in a flowing and continuous manner. This style of writing was heavily relied on in the past. For example, many important documents such as the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution were written in cursive writing. Back then cursive was seen as a formal style of writing that was prioritized and commonly used.
In contemporary society, what was once a well-relied-on and respected style of writing, is now seen with very little importance. This is mainly due to the fact that typing on a computer is now the preferred and more commonly used method of writing because it is seen as more efficient rather than having to individually write out each letter.
“Old documents were written in cursive because that’s how people wrote back then but it changed,” said senior Sulaiman Zafar. “I think it shifted from cursive to plain text on paper and then to typing and I think that’s just how technology develops. Plain text was easy for people to learn and typing was even easier, as you don’t have to write anything down, you just have to string together words.”
Even during school, cursive isn’t really used by many students to complete assignments other than to make work look more aesthetically pleasing.
“You don’t really see cursive being used a lot in assignments, normally you write in print,” said freshman Balini Krishnan. “The main time that I really see cursive being used is on posters, on fancy greeting cards and things like that.”
Many students only care to learn cursive so that they can learn how to write their signature. After they have perfected their signature, they are uninterested in continuing to learn cursive. This allows the students who do know how to write in cursive to feel a sense of pride because they understand how to do something that not many students feel motivated to do.
“I only write my name in cursive because that’s the only thing I know how to write in cursive,” Zafar said. “I feel like my signature is just something that I do and that I feel proud of knowing that I do. But I feel like [cursive is] dying out because people are only using it for certain scenarios, like a signature.”
The slow disappearance of cursive is causing students to wonder if cursive is even necessary. Some see cursive only as a style of writing while others see it as an opportunity for self-expression. The importance of cursive as well as handwriting in general is being overlooked. This is mostly due to the shift from students writing on a piece of paper to a computer.
“I think that [students] can get through life without [cursive] and it’s not something they need to get a job interview but I do think that it holds value in that it preserves this part of us that we uniquely only have, like a fingerprint,” said Kate Meaney, FHS English teacher. “I don’t know that they need it necessarily to function in society anymore but I do think it’s valuable.”
A contributing factor to the increasing irrelevance of cursive is the fact that many students were taught cursive at a young age or while in elementary school and this often leads to them forgetting how cursive works.
“I was taught [cursive] in third grade,” Krishnan said.
A possible solution to cursive being forgotten throughout a student’s education is that instead of teaching students cursive during elementary school, students should be taught cursive in middle school. This is because being taught from the young ages of 5-10, it can be difficult for students to recall how to write in cursive if they haven’t practiced their cursive writing since being taught it.
“I guess, maybe continuing it through middle school so that they come into high school with a baseline because I do agree it’s prevalent in elementary and then it kind of disappears after that,” Meaney said. “I think if you have three years of middle school education where [cursive is] still being worked on or there’s even just a tiny aspect of it incorporated into any part of any unit, then at least they can come into high school with a baseline.”
