In 9th grade, our English teacher would assign us journal entries for homework. Sometimes we had prompts, but usually we would have the option of writing whatever we wanted. Poetry, short stories, haikus, whatever. I remember writing about my handwriting a few times. It’s interesting. I noticed in middle school that my handwriting always changed somehow after summer vacation. My handwriting would even change as I wrote a journal entry. I wrote about that too.

I switched to cursive in 10th grade. I’m not sure why, but I just did it. Now I rarely type in print. For some reason, writing well became something I thought about a lot. I think that was around the type I became obsessed with typography.

Cursive

What’s the deal with cursive? Why do students learn it and then never use it? Well, I think it’s still taught because it helps you read it. If kids stop learning cursive, they won’t know how to read it!

Still, cursive came about after print. It’s a more efficient method of writing. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone cares about handwriting anymore, especially since we live in an era of typing.

Handwriting

I think a person’s penmanship says a lot about their personality. It also says something about their mood or their concentration. Handwriting is extremely expressive. You can’t get that from a typeset document.

I love the way this is written:

It’s unfortunate that we don’t see penmanship like that anymore.