Running head: TOPIC SELECTION AND COURSE OVERVIEW 1
Topic Selection and Course Overview
Cynthia Wolf
University of Northern Iowa
TOPIC SELECTION AND COURSE OVERVIEW 2
For my topic selection, I chose to research why cursive writing needs to be taught in
schools. I always found it unfair that my little brother never had to write out multiple pages of
cursive writing like I did in third grade. Another thing, my little brother, Will, has dyslexia which
means that he mixes up his letters when he reads and writes. Cursive writing would help with
that because of the vastly different ways the letters are written. I felt sad that he missed out on
the opportunity to learn such a beautiful writing. I am passionate about this because I feel that the
younger generation is missing out on some of our history. So many of the historical documents
like the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Emancipation Proclamation are
all written in cursive writing. Not only for the history, but cursive writing is known to help with
hand eye coordination and help to develop part of the brain that doesn’t develop in a regular
english class with reading and writing. I know that we are moving to a technology based era
around the world, but I think that learning and teaching cursive writing will still benefit the next
few generations. Having to learn cursive writing will help children to not only have the benefits
of being able to repeat words more for learning, but it will help them know how to spell better
and not rely on spellcheck and the internet as much.
I’ve been searching up and down trying to find a book that would fit the criteria set out
for this assignment. Looking on the library’s websites, there were only three results of cursive
writing books, and they ended up having nothing to do with cursive writing. I ended up finding
that there are no books that would be beneficial for me to use for this assignment. I chose to look
up some reliable online websites that could give me better information about the topic I chose. I
tried to look up common core, or books used in schools that explained what was being taught in
schools, but since cursive writing is no longer taught in many schools, it was not talked about. I
TOPIC SELECTION AND COURSE OVERVIEW 3
found a few academic journals that were very educational about the topic and had great resources
to help give examples. The one that I selected was found through the Rod Library Database:
Bauerlein, Valerie.(2013, Jan. 31). A1. The New Script for Teaching Handwriting Is No
Script at All --- Cursive Goes the Way of 'See Spot Run' In Many Classrooms, Delighting
all Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]
Students. W
This academic journal is about a specific North Carolina school district that is starting to
mandate cursive writing in their schools. It talks about many different people that would be
affected by this change and what they think of the situation.
This article was selected after searching through many others to find the information that
I thought would be most beneficial in the upcoming assignments for the persuasive project. I was
debating between this one and another one titled ‘Cursive Writing: Are Its Last Days
Approaching?’ because this one was more about cursive writing in general, not about how it
works in schools. It gave practical, historical, and essential reasons that we had it in the past, but
not reasons that we should still have it now. Another thing was that the article that I chose had
examples and references from the people who are involved which helped to give more reasons in
my point of view.
I think that the audience of the book are school districts around the United States. This is
because it talks about how other states are starting to bring cursive writing into their school
districts. The author, Valerie Bauerlein, is a Wall Street Journal national reporter who covers
stories about Southern politics, economics, and culture. She has written many pieces on big
topics like Pepsi, Wells Fargo, and Nascar. I think the message of this article is to inform other
states and schools to incorporate cursive writing into their classes.
