The future of handwriting

As I have watched the progress of the young man I tutor, now 16, I continue to be amazed that he still prints.  He says his teachers haven't the time (or interest?) to teach cursive writing. His sister, graduating from college soon, also never learned to write cursively.   I find this amazing.

I recall some of the exams from my university teaching days, not long ago, and how many of the male students, it seemed, printed everything. I was glad to be able to read their work, but I would think the demands of time would force them to write.  I never investigated the issue or thought much about handwriting until recently.

I can remember clearly moving from the infantile printing stage to cursive, then at age 12 or so, my efforts to improve my handwriting and make it more sophisticated: a statement of my unique self. I continued practicing in high school until I got the form I now use, which is legible, if not elegant.  I can't imagine taking notes in class without knowing how to write cursively.

A recent article by Philip Hensher in the Guardian, based on his new book, The Missing Ink, brought all this to my attention.  He  does not mention this shortcoming in American education, which I gather is widespread over here; instead he focuses on what he calls the vanishing practicing of handwriting in an age of texting and email, when nearly everyone types.  He laments the slow death of the personal, the idiosyncratic, the sensuously rounded shapes of writing by pen; in short, the personal element.

Hensher, who teaches at the Univ. of Exeter, laments the omnipresence of cell phones and other gadgets that make communication less human and personal, more mechanical, than the traditional method of writing with ink.

It is true, of course, that sloppy handwriting has cost business millions, as countless pieces of mail get returned each year by the postal service because they are illegible (not to mention doctors' prescriptions that are indecipherable).  If it's bad for business, I guess, the message filters down to the educational establishment that teaching cursive writing, at least in this country, is one of those frills we can dispense with.

Writing mechanically as I am now enjoying doing is faster, and speed is important in modern society. So is clarity. But, as Hensher points out, what about slowing down a bit and being thoughtful as we write?  What about our writing as an expression of the individual's inner self, his or her personality?  Nothing can replace for me the first handwritten draft of an article, with all of its cross-outs and erasures; it is an artifact, a tangible sign that, like my ancestors, I have inscribed something onto paper.  The physicality of writing is a hard thing to dispose of. Unnatural.

Typing on the word processor is wonderful, but are we to write sympathy notes, greeting cards, and thank-you messages electronically?  If someone fills out a lengthy application in a medical office, must he print it laboriously, like a third grader?

Handwriting used to be essential in communication; now it is becoming marginalized. This is not a major tragedy, just another sign of depersonalization.  In the U.K, apparently, at least half of the teachers still devote some time to teaching handwriting (according to a study cited by Hensher).

Prof. Hensher would be appalled at the printing that the students I have encountered call writing.  If he revises his book, he might want to include a look at classrooms on this side of the Atlantic. I hope I am wrong--that some American students are being taught to write in that flowing, mature, possibly elegant thing called cursive.

Writing by Hand in the Electronic Age

I recently read an article about Robert Caro, the American author who has spent 36 years writing the biography of Lyndon Johnson and has already published several massive volumes, beautifully written--and done by hand.

I am always surprised to read of authors who still write lenghty works in longhand or who use the typewriter since it seems from my experience as a writer and teacher of writing that the flow of my work, and my ability to revise, has been much improved over the past twenty years or so because of word processing.

In my earlier days, when I typed, I invariably wrote out every word, then would make minor changes in the typing, which was laborious. I cannot imagine having had to write by hand all that I have published in the past twenty years, but I know that, on some occasions, when I write a personal note, for example, the old, familiar pressure of the pen inscribing the words on the paper is akin to cutting into wood: there is pleasure in the slowness of the process. And in the very physicality of the act.

In reading some recent ruminations by Kevin Hartnett on writing by hand, I expected him to say more about the appeal of slowing down. Instead, he reflected on bigger issues: the relation of thinking and writing. (I found the article "High Wire Act in www.themillions.com for April 16.)

Since Hartnett often finds that the blank computer screen is intimidating, he tried an experiment: writing a full article entirely in longhand before typing it. He suspects that the old-fashioned way might be better, although all the reconfiguring he does on the computer produces more sophisticated thoughts.

He has learned that he must always form a complete thought in words in his head before he can inscribe it on paper, so that the correlation between his thoughts and what he writes is closer than if he had composed the article on the computer.

So writing by hand "alters the relationship between forming a thought and recording it in words." On the computer, Hartnett finds that he begins (as I do) to type at the onset of an idea and then completes the idea/sentence, which he figures out in the process of recording it. His thoughts come out "cleaner" when he works in longhand, he thinks.

And he uses shorter, simpler words. I assume his sentences, too, are different and his overall style is more spare than if he used the computer since the complete thoughts he is able to hold in his head until he gets them down on paper are briefer. His cross-outs or revisions tend to be fewer by far than if writing electronically. This is one obvious advantage of word processing: that it makes changes almost enjoyable and, at the same time, facilitates the flow of interesting, expansive sentences, the kind that reflect the immediacy of unfolding ideas. This is why I value the computer for writing and have no interest in returning to the older technology.

Hartnett speculates that there is, for him, a higher reward in writing by hand, self-indulgent though it may seem. He may not be aware that academic research in the composing process of students has long been concerned with the cognitive aspects involved in his experiment. The complex relation of thinking, learning, and writing is still not fully understood, and Hartnett's article, which suggests some ambivalence about which method if preferable, is a valuable contribution to this field.

I would welcome the reactions of any writers who have a preference for writing by hand or by computer and the reasons for the choice of one over the other: write to me at schiffhorst@yahoo.com (type "revision" in the subject line).