Cursive, or How We Write by Hand (Teaching Portfolio) by Tamara O'Callaghan https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio A brief exploration of the lost art of cursive handwriting en-us 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC 2025-10-29 22:53:47 UTC hello@padlet.com Writing Cursive Activity Guidelines ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972457 The following English sentence is a pangram -- a sentence that includes every letter of the English alphabet:

The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog.

The phrase is commonly used for touch-typing practice, testing typewriters and computer keyboards, displaying examples of fonts, and other applications involving text where the use of all letters in the alphabet is desired.

ACTIVITY GUIDELINES:
Copy this sentence by hand, first in printing and then in cursive. Note the challenges you faced in the writing process and what you think of your final version. Once you complete your posting, be sure to comment on the postings of at least 2 other students (or on mine!). You can even use the "like" feature to indicate whose handwriting or reflection on the process most impressed you!ENG 368: Reading

Be sure that you have logged into Padlet so that your name appears automatically on your post and your comments. And remember to reflect on the "cursèd" experience of writing cursive in your Commonplace Book Project.
]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972457 Cursive Alphabet (Sample) ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972459 Here is the English alphabet in cursive script to help you with copying the passage. Good luck!]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972459 Writing Cursive (Instructor: Tamara O'Callaghan) ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972462 I began to learn cursive handwriting in Grade 2 in Canada. Obviously, I have many more years of experience writing cursive than you do. However, being lefthanded, I have always had trouble writing cursive. Why? Well, pushing my pencil or pen across the page is very tiring; making all those loops slows me down considerably; and the way I hold my writing utensil in my left hand causes me to smear the ink or graphite (because "lead" pencils are not really made with lead!) across the page as I write.

I used lined paper for my handwriting examples in order to think intentionally of the 4-line approach to writing cursive. As you will see from my examples below, I typically write a modified form of cursive, one that looks very much like my printing. My mother, seeing me struggle to write cursive with my left hand when I was learning it in grade school, taught me this modified version that she learned decades earlier in England. It really helped me to write much more quickly, something I needed to do on English literature tests which typically require essay-style answers.

However, in high school, I had to return to writing in more traditional cursive for my Russian classes. I took 4 years of Russian in high school, so I had to learn to write using the Cyrillic alphabet. To show you how I write Russian (which I rarely do anymore), see my final cursive example. It is a pangram in  Russian.: В чащах юга жил бы цитрус? Да, но фальшивый экземпляр.

I typically print nowadays whenever I write by hand,-- which is infrequent, I must admit. In fact, I found my left hand ached by the time I finished writing my sample sentences for this padlet activity. Clearly, my writing hand is out of shape! Although I do not text all that much, I realize that I now keyboard almost exclusively.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972462 4-Line Penmanship Notebook: The Names of Those 4 Lines ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972463 Typically, we learn cursive handwriting by practicing our letters in a 4-line notebook. These 4 lines have the following names:
  • ascender line
  • mean line (or top line)
  • baseline (or bottom line)
  • descender line
The baseline is the line, often invisible, on which the written letters of the alphabet rest.  The x-height, or corpus size, is the distance between the baseline and the mean line of lowercase letters in a typeface. Typically, this is the height of the letter x (the source of the term) as well as the height of the lowercase letters a, c, n, m, r, v, w, z., etc. Descenders are the downward strokes used to write letters, such as lowercase g or y, that extend below the baseline to the descender line. Ascenders are the upward strokes used to write letters, such as lowercase l or t, that extend above the median line to the ascender line. The ascender line also marks the cap height -- that is, the height of the uppercase or capital form of a letter of the alphabet.
]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972463 Student G - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972464 The challenges I faced had to do with the spacing issues. When I write, as I normally do, I can fit a lot of sentences in. When it came to the print version, my handwriting was bigger, even more so with cursive. Another challenge related to the use of cursive letters that are more uncommon. I do not use the cursive letter x on the regular and struggle with trying to remember how to correctly write it. Overall, I like my handwriting the most as i think the cursive looks clunky and the print is rather bland. Also when writing, my handwriting, as a mix, seems quicker than that of print or cursive. I expected this to occur with the cursive as it has been a while sense I wrote proper cursive but did not expect this to occur with the printed version as well. ]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972464 Student F - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972465 I began writing cursive in the fourth grade and we stopped about half way through the year. I have always believed that the cursive I write with now isn't necessarily correct but, I was wrong. The letters I did know consisted of everything except x, k, z, and Q.  I was excited to see that it wasn't too difficult to write the sentence despite those few letters. My biggest challenge would probably be speed at which I write. If I go at a normal pace (which is pretty quick) then it is much harder to read for someone looking at it. I can only seem to write pretty cursive if I take my time. ]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972465 Student D - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972466 I began writing cursive in Vietnamese style when I was in grade 1 and started writing cursive in English style when I was in grade 5. Since I am used to writing in Vietnamese style, I had some troubles writing in English style. I felt that for most of the letters, Vietnamese handwriting is the simplified version of English cursive handwriting. It took me quite long to write in printing as I am not used to it. I find writing the letter q, p, j so much more complicated in English cursive handwriting. Furthermore, in Vietnamese alphabet, the letters f, j, z, w are not included, so I just write those letters the way I usually write. On the other hands, there are some Vietnamese letters that are not included in English alphabet like ă, â, ô, ơ, ư. 
Starting from grade 6, I do not have to strictly follow the writing rule anymore, so I just started writing my own way so that I could write as fast as possible. Typically I would write capital letters in printing and other letters in cursive. This is also my current writing style. 

]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972466 Student E - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972467 I started to learn Vietnamese cursive and write it when I was 5 years old. During my elementary, middle, and high school, my teachers were still using cursive or a combination of cursive and printing writing styles. Therefore, I am still used to cursive now and I can read and write cursive easily. I am now using a combination of cursive and printing writing styles so that I can write faster.
Since I am used to Vietnamese cursive, it is a little challenging for me to write English cursive. However, it is interesting to learn that Vietnamese and English cursive styles are a lot similar. There are some differences between the two languages. Vietnamese has some letter that English does not have like ă, â/ê/ô, ơ, ư. English has some letters that Vietnamese does not have like f, j, w, z.
In general, I feel like I enjoy writing cursive more as it is more appealing to me.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972467 Student I - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972468 I learned how to write in cursive around the 5th grade and we did it for 1 and a half years. During 6th grade, if I remember we had to write most of our homework in cursive but about halfway through the year, we could do either print or cursive. I Don't mind mentioning this but I have some problems with reading and writing as I found out at the end of 8th grade I had Dyslexia and Dysgraphia. To keep it simple Dyslexia is a reading disability and Dysgraphia is a writing disability. I can only remember about 50% of cursive letters and my printed write isn’t so clear, most of the time. 

During this assignment, I had to take my time with cursive as I needed to look back at how to write the letters and how to trace them out. I also took my time with my printed write to try and make it neat. I normally have trouble keeping my sentences on the same line as well as keeping the letters and words spaced out correctly. Don’t take this picture as a good look at my normal writing, normally it’s more rushed. I did both my normal printed writing as well as me trying to make it look nice. I didn’t try it with the cursive because my hand started to hurt a lot after I finished the cursive. Also, I don’t really recall how to write my old style of cursive other than my name, which is at the top of the image. 

After I finished writing, I realized my hand we hurting a lot more than it normally does when I take notes. I’m assuming it’s because I took my time with trying to write neatly as well as trying to write cursive again after a long time without writing it. 


]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972468 Student H - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972469 I learned how to write in cursive when I was 9. If I remember correctly, we were not taught individual alphabets , instead what I was taught was that we're not allowed to raise our pencil and I sort of discovered the writing myself. For 4/5 years, I only wrote in cursive. However, for some reasons which I cannot remember, I switched back to print and I have only written in print ever since. 

I also write in Nepali, but unlike English it's written in a different script which is Devanagari. We do not have cursive in that script , instead all of our words are connected by a bar to make a word. I have also written the Nepali translation of the sentence . (P.S I am writing in Nepali after more than 2 years)]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972469 Student A - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972470 I am surprised with how good my cursive turned out. It was legible even! I haven’t written anything other than my name in cursive since 4th grade (I think). I never wrote in cursive as my primary handwriting either. I can read cursive pretty good, but I had to look at the sample writing to remember letters as I was writing. I’m guessing that this is because I haven’t used those hand motions in a while so my muscle memory for writing cursive is gone. The print at the top is my normal handwriting. I didn’t intentionally slow down while writing this but normally my handwriting is normally messier because it is while I am taking notes or jotting something down on a sticky note while in a meeting or programming. Aside from those situations, I rarely write. Last time that wrote more than notes was when I had to write a 1-page reflection for my honors class a year ago. I remember after that my hand was hurting.

]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972470 Student J - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972471 I think the first time I wrote in cursive was in fourth grade, and I'm fairly certain that I haven't written it since then. The only exception being writing my name in cursive. Trying to write in cursive for the first time in years was slightly painful, and my result reflects that. I don't think that my cursive was particularly good, but it was better than I expected. I've never been someone who cared about their penmanship. I only ever cared if I could read it myself. That is certainly reflected in my print sentence along with the cursive one. ]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972471 Student G - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972472 I initially learned cursive in the third grade and had some requirements to continue it into 5th grade. After elementary school, the skill was no longer required, and I returned to writing in print. Due to the lack of cursive, I lost most of the skill. In 8th grade we then received laptops and did little handwriting besides the standardized tests. Since the increase use of laptops, I noticed its inverse relationship with lower aesthetic of my handwriting. I am also left-handed making the cleanliness of my handwriting even worse or is at least an excuse I use for my writing being so bad.

Being left-handed I also shared some of the hardships with Professor O’Callaghan. The smudges she mentioned also bother me on an assignment I want to keep clean. The standardized tests I mentioned early also created an issue for me. With many of the tests being 60-minute writing prompts my hand became tired quicker requiring more breaks and found it took me longer to write a similar number of words as my peers. Like we mentioned about left-handed individuals disadvantage in becoming scribes I feel is like the disadvantage in the tests. Today I only hand write my notes in classes like math or chemistry that are too difficult to take on computer. For these notes I am attempting to write fast and only well enough to be able to look over later. I will include an example of my notes below but in some cases I find it difficult to even read some of my notes. 

For this assignment, the cursive writing felt uncomfortable to me since outside of my signature I have not used it since 5th grade. Some of the letters came back quickly since my note taking writing shares some aspects with cursive depending on the word. You can tell my lack of cursive with some shakiness in some letters, along with differing sizing on others. I was able to write the cursive at a decent speed with somewhat accuracy so I was somewhat happy with the sentence but definitely could be improved. 
]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972472 Student G - Note Taking ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972473 This is an example of how my notes look in chemistry when I'm just trying to scribble down ideas quickly.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972473 Student E - Writing Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972474 I started writing cursive sometime in early elementary school - maybe 1st or second grade. We were taught how to write cursive and were encouraged to use it when writing but it was never required. I switch back and forth from time to time or I use a little bit of both print and cursive in my handwriting. My handwriting changes greatly with my mood (this is actually true of everyone but I especially notice it with myself) and when I'm pressed for time.

For this assignment, I struggled a bit with the speed of my writing and control over my hand movements. For some weird reason, my hands tend to jerk slightly when I write quickly in cursive so I tend to make more mistakes. For example, I misplaced the dot of my 'i' so it looks as if I spelled 'quick' incorrectly. However, I hate the way my cursive looks when I write slowly so I made the sacrifice. You can also see that my 's' on the end of 'jumps' is more a scribble than it is a letter. That is another example of my hand jerking. I have always loved cursive handwriting and am mesmerized by my grandparents cursive because it is so natural and beautiful. I love that it is even more unique to every person than print is and I wish everyone was still taught this skill in school.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972474 Student B - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972475 I remember learning cursive in second or third grade for half of a year or less. I write a lot, and as a child I wrote different fonts until I decided to take some letters I saw other people use and mimic them; I use my brother's "s" and my dad's signature inspired mine, where I don't use cursive and combine caps with lower case. I also taught myself to write with my left hand, although it is more tiring, so I always write with my right hand. 

One aspect of my writing I am curious about is that I have always written with my notebook horizontally, with it perpendicular to my body. I'm not sure if other people do it, but I don't see anyone around me do it. I've found when I write in Japanese it is harder to write that way.

I prefer more slanted and compact script than round and soft writing, so I tried to mimic that, but I write a lot and very quickly so it usually looks like the "notes" section. 

In regards to technology, I prefer writing essays on computers but journaling by hand. I never learned how to type correctly on the computer as well, so I find that I use my left hand more than my right when typing because I keep it by the "wasd" keys from playing video games. I can type without looking, but I know other people place their fingers on certain keys. I use my wrists a lot in art and sports, and wrote very often, so I am fairly comfortable writing and I only remember my hand aching once when writing an AP exam response. 

For this assignment, I would like to note I've observed that on some letters, like "t" "f" "l" "p" and more, I write with my pen going upward rather than downward first. I did this purposefully in high school to write faster, but forgot I did that until now. In Japanese, stroke order and the direction your pen moves is more important.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972475 Student L - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972476 The print version of the sentence is how I typically write my notes. When I am in a rush my notes tend to be very sloppy and almost unrecognizable by anyone that isn't me. I find it interesting how many of us change our handwriting depending on what we are writing. I haven't written in cursive in years so it took me longer to write the sentence in cursive. It maybe took be about 2 mins to write the sentence in cursive compared to the 30 seconds it took for me to write the sentence in my normal print. I had to practice some letters like "b" and "z" as they do not look the same way in print. In elementary school I enjoyed learning cursive, but it obviously was not something that I carried on into high school or college as I felt it served no real purpose to me. ]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972476 Student K - Cursive Writing ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972478 My Writing Style

I learned to write in cursive in the second grade and from what I can remember it was a learning curve even when I was that young.  From then on, many of the assignments that we had to do, we had to write in cursive, and it wasn't until I switched schools that I didn't have to write in cursive anymore.  I completely stopped writing in cursive in probably the 6/7th grade just because it was easier and faster to write in print.

For this assignment, I included my normal hand so that I could compare it to my "neat" print and my attempt at cursive again.  As expected by print was fine, however my cursive was lackluster.  I had to look back at the example to remember how to connect some characters because I had forgotten how to do so.  

The interesting thing from my normal writing however is that I usually employ the same idea of cursive to normal hand, meaning that when I am writing, I usually connect my characters and don't lift my pen or pencil from the paper. I think I started doing this just because it was faster, however, i refrained from using cursive characters.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972478 Student F - Cursive ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972479 I started learning cursive in third grade. We started off with the paper booklets with the 4 line guide. We did that for probably the rest of the year, but never picked it back up in fourth grade. In sixth grade, I had a teacher that had us do many essays, papers, or letters and they all had to be in cursive every time. I think this is when I started to blend my note taking handwriting into a mesh between the two writing styles (print and cursive). My biggest flaw when it comes to writing in cursive is my speed. I am able to write really fast when I blend the two styles, but when it I am focused on writing only cursive and doing it correctly then I am pretty slow. I gave an example of the way I take notes, you can see my letters connect a lot of the time     ]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972479 Student C (cursive versus "normal" handwriting) ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972481 I am usually a fast writer, so when trying to write the cursive formally, I struggled a lot and had to slow myself down to make sure the cursive was "correct". I also struggled with writing the formal print handwriting because I am used to how I write now, and even though it looks very similar, the formal handwriting for me took longer. I learned cursive in third grade, however, I have adapted to my modified way and honestly forgot some of the little details about cursive. It sounds weird, but my handwriting also depends on the pen I use.]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972481 Student C: Further Notes ocallaghant4 https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972482 For example, these are my notes when using a regular pen, rather than a felt tip pen which is what I was using for this assignment]]> 2021-10-15 16:02:02 UTC https://padlet.com/ocallaghant4/hnr230_cursive_writing_teaching_portfolio/wish/1819972482