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Indiana curses the cursive: No more cursive writing in curriculum
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Post by
Squishalot
Question - do you guys ever have to write long essay-type questions in exam situations for schooling? For example, something that requires a 6 page written response in an hour and a half or so. If so, how often?
I fill up a blue book (do you have those down under?) in a half an hour maybe, unless I have to stop and think which makes it longer.
Do you mean
this
? So from what I understand from wiki, that's about 10-15 mins a page of writing.
We've got similar exam booklets over here - the typical school leaving exam booklet is about 8 pages, I think. I seem to recall writing about 16 pages in my 2 hour Philosophy examination, and relatively speaking (as compared to my schooling peers), I'm a slow writer. I know that one of my friends wrote up about 26 pages in a 2 hour English exam.
I suppose that my question is aiming at the frequency at which you need to do it - if it's something that you do throughout your high school career, then by definition, your cursive is going to improve and be relatively fast, because otherwise, you simply don't have enough time to get your answer down on the page. However, if extensive writing isn't something that's commonly required, that explains the lack of proficiency described by people in this thread.
Post by
pezz
Question - do you guys ever have to write long essay-type questions in exam situations for schooling? For example, something that requires a 6 page written response in an hour and a half or so. If so, how often?
Typically I have essay type-questions only during midterms and finals (so four times a year). Take away the occasional take-home midterm, multiple choice, papers-instead-of-finals, etc., plus Econ exams which are often diagrams + explanations rather than full essays, I'd say... 10 times in a year?
High school had a ton of short answer stuff, as opposed to essays. Plus, I had a lot more math and science exams. So I probably did less writing for high school.
Post by
Jubilee
Question - do you guys ever have to write long essay-type questions in exam situations for schooling? For example, something that requires a 6 page written response in an hour and a half or so. If so, how often?
I fill up a blue book (do you have those down under?) in a half an hour maybe, unless I have to stop and think which makes it longer.
Do you mean
this
? So from what I understand from wiki, that's about 10-15 mins a page of writing.
We've got similar exam booklets over here - the typical school leaving exam booklet is about 8 pages, I think. I seem to recall writing about 16 pages in my 2 hour Philosophy examination, and relatively speaking (as compared to my schooling peers), I'm a slow writer. I know that one of my friends wrote up about 26 pages in a 2 hour English exam.
I suppose that my question is aiming at the frequency at which you need to do it - if it's something that you do throughout your high school career, then by definition, your cursive is going to improve and be relatively fast, because otherwise, you simply don't have enough time to get your answer down on the page. However, if extensive writing isn't something that's commonly required, that explains the lack of proficiency described by people in this thread.
Oh I misunderstood I'm sorry. In college the only handwritten work that I've ever turned in is my midterm and final exams for my non-math and non-science exams. In high school, everything I turned in was handwritten, the only things we ever typed were English submissions that we had already turned in and that got chosen for the school newsletter.
Post by
432158
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
High school had a ton of short answer stuff, as opposed to essays. Plus, I had a lot more math and science exams. So I probably did less writing for high school.
Yeah, that's what I was expecting. Short answer stuff isn't quite as writing intensive as essays, so there's less need to get writing skills up.
Oh I misunderstood I'm sorry. In college the only handwritten work that I've ever turned in is my midterm and final exams for my non-math and non-science exams. In high school, everything I turned in was handwritten, the only things we ever typed were English submissions that we had already turned in and that got chosen for the school newsletter.
No need to apologise! As with pezz, was the majority of that short-answer stuff? I remember that we used to have fairly significantly sized essay components - English was almost always essays for exams, and most HSIE subjects also had an essay component in each exam. Even if they weren't essays, some science subjects (Agriculture is the first that comes to mind) had 1 page answer questions.
Post by
Jubilee
Thinking through it the only essay exams I had were history, especially in the last two years. English exams were not essays at all. We did have weekly writing assignments in English that we wrote in our own time and turned in, we had to handwrite those. Any other written component of any of my other classes was small and pretty unmemorable because I really can't recall anything.
Post by
Squishalot
Yeah, that's what I guessed. That probably explains the cursive proficiency gap (i.e. why I've got no issues, whereas everyone else here is moaning about it) - I've just had more practice in needing to write bucketloads at a time and appreciate the speed bonus that comes with it.
More directly on-topic, I think the change to remove cursive from the curriculum will only result in a reduced amount of writing tasks (from the relatively low levels already), which I believe can only be a bad thing. I believe that writing is better than typing for any sort of 'thinking' tasks, as it forces you to slow down your output and spend more time considering what you're going to say. Especially because there isn't a 'ctrl-shift-home, del' function.
Post by
Jubilee
Especially because there isn't a 'ctrl-shift-home, del' function.
Makes cursive porn extremely risky business ;)
Post by
pezz
More directly on-topic, I think the change to remove cursive from the curriculum will only result in a reduced amount of writing tasks (from the relatively low levels already), which I believe can only be a bad thing. I believe that writing is better than typing for any sort of 'thinking' tasks, as it forces you to slow down your output and spend more time considering what you're going to say. Especially because there isn't a 'ctrl-shift-home, del' function.
I think that depends on the person. Typing outlines into Word, with its infinite capacity for me to cross things out, replace them, move them from one place to another, is miles better than paper.
Writing final papers by hand may force you to slow down better than typing, but you can still slow yourself down while typing if you choose. Plus, again, it's cleaner and easier to correct mistakes while typing.
I'd also like to point out that typing probably has more room for further innovation than writing does.
Post by
83344
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Post by
Atik
Question - do you guys ever have to write long essay-type questions in exam situations for schooling? For example, something that requires a 6 page written response in an hour and a half or so. If so, how often?
Yes, I would get those all the time.
They would kill my english score. I would pound out three or four pages in a half hour or so. Then I would have NOTHING left to fit in....
So I would get a 50 for it being too short...
And honestly? Cursive wouldn't help Cursive is MORE painful for long-term writing, as you are pushing down more than if you are printing, where your hand gets brief breaks when you lift it up.
Post by
120504
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Post by
142728
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
mindthegap5
I write joined up.
It looks like a spider fell in ink and ran across my page but i still do it.
:)
also like atik said above, hand hurts after a while of constant pressing. But there's an easy solution
Don't press down so hard :)
Post by
Pwntiff
My dad doesn't even sign in cursive, and my signature is evolving more and more into a glyph...
I don't mind it going out of teaching. I use it for handwritten notes for various things to to practice penmanship, but a good 80-90% of my writing has to be in print, various work forms and whatnot.
Post by
gamerunknown
My mother signed a suspicious car rental contract with "not signed", just in case they tried to challenge us in court over something or other. It turned out to be innocuous though.
She also crossed out and initialled certain things on my short term tenancy agreement for university (like television provided for flat when in fact the previous occupant stole it, so that I wasn't charged for its price when I left myself).
Having a fancy signature isn't really helpful when people aren't going to read it anyway. Perhaps the exception is on bank cards, where they're usually checked.
Post by
Morec0
back in third grade they made us learn cursive. At first I hated it, but after a while I got to where it was how I usually wrote.
Then came fourth grade: "You don't have to write in cursive" said the teacher. Something about that seems wrong to me.
Back on topic, though: only on the SAT where it's required and when signing my name have I ever written in cursive ever again. I suppose it makes some sense as it seems more formal than simply writting your name, but I agree that it's pointless.
Post by
Sweetscot
I have no clue what the official stance is on cursive writing in my state (and gonna be too lazy to go google it) but I think it really depends on the individual teachers anyway. One school I went to was quite small and you had the same teacher for each subject for about 4 years...and the English teacher assigned LOTS of "write a page story on " assignments and only accepted cursive or typed (and not everyone had a home computer then and even if you did chances of your parents letting you use it to type homework was VERY slim). Then another year I had teachers that would not accept cursive, only print or typed. To me it really seems like a middle school/high school type subject anyway since trying to teach it during a phase when some children are still working on developing fine motor skills, spending a long period on it all at once then abandoning it, and not combining it with other writing skills such as correct composition of formal writing all seems to be pretty pointless in the long run.
I personally feel we are pushing students to learn more and more "not everyday living" type stuff (as another brought up, tech keeps moving forward and it seems to add curriculum faster than it is being phased out) that at some point teens are going to need a seperate class just to learn things they will really need in everyday life no matter what path they choose to take in it.
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
gamerunknown
The only question is whether they write their own bastardized version of cursive that develops naturally as they try to print quickly, or whether they write a common version similar to what others use. The latter is preferable for being more legible to others, and someone who learns to write cursive may arguably be more able to read others' cursive.
If one is writing so quickly as to necessitate joining letters without learning cursive, then one is likely not going to be legible after however many lessons. Unless the way in which cursive aids fluidity of writing is common to everyone, in which case everyone's cursive would look pretty much the same anyway.
The only other argument I can think of that one might have against print is that each individual step reducing speed might not, eventually, result in the fastest script. Much like how all the iterations of the testicle with the vastly convoluted seminal tube were useful but the end result isn't ideal.
Oh and another argument against cursive is that it hinders making corrections, another important point when writing for others. Print allows for extra space between letters and there is no need to worry about the superfluous lines joining formerly joining "e" and "u" when one forgets the "a" in beautiful, say.
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