Cutting Cursive: Is Handwriting Still Important to Today’s Preservice Teacher?

Handwriting is a tool for communication often untaught that has effects on learning and long-term development for students of the future. Handwriting used to be needed in order to function in society, however, today that skill is no longer needed. New technology, current teaching methods and societal needs have caused handwriting to be overlooked in many school districts. Classrooms are overwhelmed with information and many schools are simply running out of time to teach cursive, therefore no longer making it a priority. Handwriting is a perceptual motor skill requiring higher cognitive thinking, something that most primary school children find difficult, yet it is still needed in the school curriculum and provides a stable foundation for students of the future. The questions to be addressed by my research are to examine the factors that have led to the demise of cursive writing in elementary schools. I will research the complex issues that have contributed to the decline of cursive handwriting. This will include my investigation into the factors that technology has played, along with societal needs. I will interview preservice teachers, those students in college preparing to become teachers, and try to understand where the importance for teaching handwriting started and ended. By the end of my research I want to have constructed a timeline of events to explain the demise of this needed skill. My methodology for this research will be to gather information from various primary and secondary literature review sources. I want to understand when cursive started to disappear from the curriculum and why.

Margaret Mae Bryant Papers - Accession 21

This collection consists of Dr. Bryant’s professional and organizational files, biographical data, correspondence, and speeches. Most of the material relates to her publishing efforts, her work as a faculty member at Brooklyn College, and her involvement with professional organizations, especially the New York branch of the American Association of University Women. Most of the material extends form 1950-1975. A list of the more prominent individuals who corresponded with Margaret Bryant has been included as an appendix to the inventory. (For more extensive and comprehensive list of correspondents, see the list included in the collection control file.)

James Pinckney Kinard Papers - Accession 8

The James Pinckney Kinard Papers consist of family history charts of the Kinard family and related Kuhn and Summer families, and a Kinard family history, personal correspondence including letters to and from his wife Lee Wicker Kinard (1873-1963), their daughter Nelle Kinard, and other family members, business correspondence, financial papers, literary manuscripts, scrapbooks, and photographs pertaining to Kinard’s student days at the Citadel, his personal and family affairs, his teaching career, his presidency of Winthrop, and his efforts to get his literary manuscripts published. This collection consists primarily of correspondence and offers an informative insight into the personal lives and family affairs of Dr. Kinard and his wife, Mrs. Lee Wicker Kinard. The correspondence generally deals with Dr. Kinard’s struggle against the South Carolina legislature’s cuts in educational appropriations for Winthrop during the Depression; and his varied activities on behalf of Winthrop as President Emeritus. The collection also includes several unpublished manuscripts ranging from his student days at the Citadel to his later life. Areas of research would perhaps include, among others, biographical information on Dr. Kinard and social history during the Depression.

Lucile Kathryn Delano Papers - Accession 509

The Lucile Kathryn Delano Papers consist of correspondence relating to Dr. Delano, Hallet Abend, and Virgilia Peterson (Princess Sapieha of Poland), an account of her trips to Europe and Mexico City, honors and awards she received, a dissertation presented to the Board of Graduate Studies at Washington University, notes on projected research on William Cullen Bryant, manuscripts, newspaper clippings, and family photographs.

Robert Philips Lane Papers - Accession 108

The Robert Philips Lane Papers consist of lecture notes, term papers, examinations, class rolls, seating charts, speech notes and papers relating to Dr. Lane’s career as an English professor at Winthrop. Comprising a significant portion of the collection are research notes, writings, research papers, and other notes on literary figures and genres while Dr. Robert Philip Lane was a student at Thayer Academy, Harvard University, and the University of North Carolina.