The role of cursive writing on the curricular landscape of public schools today.

Abstract

The advent of the word processor has led to the slow demise of cursive writing, including the decline in time spent teaching this form of writing in public schools today. The topic of the value and role of cursive writing in the public school has been surfacing frequently in the news media and social media of the last five years. Thus a research question forms for a literacy specialist as to what is the role of cursive writing on the curricular landscape of public schools today? The most appropriate way to address this question is with empirical research using thematic analysis of a collection of news media and social media documents as found on the internet. Results of this analysis find that most of the writings occur in news venues (major online newspapers and smaller news venues online) and in the form of articles and comments on articles, with while newspaper articles more than double any non-comment genre. The second finding is that teachers and educators comprise the largest identifiable writer type, accounting for nearly 55% of known writers; parents, news reporters, and students for second place. A third finding is that the data content supportive of retaining cursive writing in schools is at least 2 to 1, meaning that support for retaining cursive writing in schools is more than double the support for removing it from school curriculum.