Cursive is Classic! (Also, The Tiger by Nael, 2016)

 We had a virtual day yesterday due to the snow. Since we were pretty sure it was coming, I sent my creative writing class (10-12 grade) home with cursive worksheets I printed from the internet. They said they wanted to learn/practice cursive for the poetry unit we have coming up.

Out of the six lessons I taught yesterday, it was the only one where every single student interacted live (all but one turned on their cameras, and that's because he was absent Friday and didn't get his sheet.)

We learned cursive when I was in second grade or so. In pencil. Pencils suck for cursive; cursive is for pens. (Correct use of semicolon!)

I'm pretty sure we learned D’Nealian, which is garbage. No one benefits from your wonky pseudo-cursive transition to full cursive.

As an adult, I've since learned that "cursive" isn't a real thing, and that you can connect your letters however you want. 

Wikipedia has this cool Italian one, where the Z actually looks like a Z:

I'm also interested in the Palmer Method, which has a unique and pleasant lowercase r:

Apparently designing handwriting and training was a big deal back in the day. Companies competed to get you to buy theirs. Kinda wild to think about.

I mostly abandoned my own cursive until 9th grade or so, when a teacher suggested I try it since my print was so awful. It was much better. I like to tell my kids with bad handwriting to give it a shot. Also much better for note taking.

For short lists (like grocery lists) I often start in printing, then switch to cursive halfway through. It feels weird to write single items that way, but I do like it better, especially when I use my fountain pen (Kaweco Brass Sport).

Anyway, speaking of poems here's some literature for tonight. (Outside of the blog's normal focus, but I'm rolling with it.)

The Tiger

The tiger

He destroyed his cage

Yes

YES

The tiger is out

Much better than the Blake poem. I'm definitely going to make them read both. I just have to decide if I'm going to sarcastically overanalyze Nael's poem to show how much deeper it is.