When we read the Declaration of Independence and other important foundational documents, we can see that they are written in cursive. But can we tell what’s written? Other than the big bold title stating, “In Congress, July 4, 1776. The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,” not much can be deciphered. The remainder of the document, written in small, cursive fine print, is barely legible to our generation; even the signatures can hardly be told apart from the next, excluding a couple of names like John Adams or John Hancock. So, how did we go from founding documents written in cursive to a generation that can’t even read them? Cursive has held up since then, but in the last decade or so, it has fallen out of the curriculum. This was due to the Common Core Standards for English initiative announced in 2010, which did not include cursive handwriting instruction. As a result, 41 states adopted the Common Core standards in 2011, removing cursive handwriting from the curriculum. That was then, but cursive has started to make a comeback as people realized the benefits of the practice. There are pros and cons, so the question is, should cursive be brought back?

Cursive has been seen to have many known benefits for all ages. One of these benefits includes the enhancement of brain development, which helps develop young minds, particularly those of students. Brain development is enhanced, particularly in regions related to language, memory, and fine motor skills. This means that cursive can contribute to overall cognitive growth, aiding students in various academic pursuits. The fluidity of cursive also enables students to focus more on the content they are producing rather than its visual appearance. Something that block writing can’t do, causing students to lose focus on their train of thought. Cursive can help students enter the flow state of writing, a psychological state of mind that writers enter where they get so involved in writing that they lose their sense of time. This flow state of writing helps get their grinding gears going and increases their writing speed and efficiency. Writing by hand, in general, fosters better retention and comprehension of written material. Not only are there many scientific benefits, but many cultural and historical ones as well. Cursive writing helps us to connect to the past, its documents, and artifacts, allowing us to maintain a connection to tradition.

Cursive can be greatly beneficial once you’ve got it down, but it can be difficult to get the ball rolling, which tends to stop people from pursuing cursive handwriting. Many people feel like it takes them longer, which can start to hurt their hands compared to regular block writing. However, this can be addressed with better teaching methods and/or ergonomic tools, such as pencil grips. Other than writing, reading cursive can also be difficult because the connected letters make it harder to decipher individual letter shapes. This difficulty is even worse for those who already have trouble reading and writing, like those with dyslexia. Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that hinders the brain’s ability to process language, and is not related to overall intelligence. All and all, cursive writing after you’ve already been adjusted to block writing is difficult and time-consuming in almost every aspect. Cursive handwriting also just doesn’t have the same appreciation it once had, as penmanship has lost value in education and society.

What can be done to please both sides of the argument? Well, it’s too late to enforce cursive on those who have already mastered the English language, those who are in middle school and beyond. Simply because they have already been accommodated to a certain style, and it would be tough for them to have to balance relearning something on top of learning new topics. Instead, integrating cursive back into the school curriculum should be done in elementary school, but not the way it had been enforced before. Cursive should be introduced as a second option for writing, not mandatory, as having to learn two ways of writing can be difficult. Speaking from personal experience, cursive was taught to us daily through boring notebooks and independent study in a quiet setting. This environment made cursive seem like the worst thing in the world and made my classmates and I adverse to learning cursive. That being said, teachers should try to find ways to make learning cursive fun and seem like the “better” option if they want any chance at bringing it back. An alternative solution could be presenting cursive as an art form, bringing back the credibility of penmanship, which can make cursive seem like an art project. Revitalizing penmanship can also help us connect to the past and maintain a connection to tradition. The idea of cursive as an art project even sheds light on the idea of group projects that will allow students to learn from each other. And to make this integration even more effective, cursive should be taught side by side with block writing so that students can look at the big picture and be able to decide on how to write on their own. The transition will be smooth and effective through cursive being integrated this way.

So, should cursive be brought back into the classroom? Yes, but only to those starting their journey in K-12. Cursive can help to strengthen young minds, creating important neural connections for fine motor skills. Essential skills that everyone needs in life. Cursive should be brought back as a second option and introduced in a fun and lighthearted way to not make it seem like a chore, as it once did. Through such integration and freedom, cursive will have a smooth and effective transition back into the classroom. But how much benefit or time will students get out of learning cursive? That is an important factor to be considered, and it can vary from student to student. So the choice is yours to make: should you learn cursive?