Jenifer’s Shelter Island Journal: On penmanship

One early morning last week, I was ensconced on my couch, my cats finally settling down next to me after vying for their territory. 

I was halfway through my sacred first cup of coffee and had finished absorbing a few paragraphs of inspiration from my family of little daily reading books. I reached for my journal, a 5×7-inch spiral notebook, and settled back to write a page before I went to pick up my grandkids for school. Over time, I have, in the past, been a pen-to-paper journal writer, and then, obedient to the mandates of the techno-gods, began to haphazardly use my computer for the purpose.

Back last year, however, I began to long for that intimate, hand-pen-paper dynamic, so I switched back. The thing is, physical journals literally pile up along with the years, and back in the day I was arrogant enough to worry about what would become of them after I lurched off this mortal coil. The lovely thing now is, I don’t really care. I’m afraid there isn’t very much in them to worry about. 

My entries now are kind of free-association meanderings here and there from one topic to the next — kids, grands, politics, theories of the universe, cat food, etc. Of course, I also jot down potential topics for this column, a little offering I’ve been given to submit every other week to the Reporter (and as close as I will ever come to writing journal entries in public). 

Topics — precisely what I’d been thinking about. With my trusty Pilot fine point, I realized, not for the first time, how much I enjoy just the physical act of writing itself, specifically in “long hand,” my thoughts flowing into a river of lines and curves. It seemed to me that my mind, arm, hand and pen were inextricably connected like one discrete appendage, and suddenly, the word “penmanship” came to me, a word foreign to this digital age, recognizable to “Adults Only,” and for a change, not about existential threats to democracy and the human species. In other words, it’s squarely on my “beat.”

Indeed, penmanship can claim a place in ancient history, but, in her 2012 article posted on history.com. in observance of National Handwriting Day established in 1977, author Jennie Cohen also brought that history into the present, writing, in part: “As typewriters and word processors swept the business world, schools began to eliminate penmanship classes, and by the 1980s many U.S. children received little formal training. (This was not the case in many European countries, where students are given rigorous handwriting instruction to this day.) While penmanship studies haven’t completely disappeared from the American curriculum, schoolchildren today spend more time mastering typing and computer skills than the neat, standardized cursive of their parents and grandparents. As early as 1955, the Saturday Evening Post had dubbed the United States a ‘nation of scrawlers,’ and studies show that handwriting abilities have largely declined since then … bemoaned by many (but not all) educators, the loss of penmanship as a requisite skill inspired the Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) to create National Handwriting Day — January 23 — in 1977. According to the group’s website, the holiday offers ‘a chance for all of us to re-explore the purity and power of handwriting.’ How can you celebrate? The WIMA suggests you pick up a pen or pencil and put it to paper — so get off the computer and start writing.”

In a more recent article, “Why Handwriting Still Matters in the Digital Age,” by Vittoria Traverso, that appeared on the nat.geo website on Oct. 10, 2024, the author writes:  “What are the benefits of handwriting? From improved memory retention to enhanced learning outcomes … the art of handwriting can significantly impact how we absorb and retain information.

“The perks of writing by hand can partly be attributed to the engagement of multiple senses in the writing process. ‘Holding a pen with our fingers, pressing it on a surface, and moving our hands to create letters and words is a complex cognitive-motor skill that requires a lot of our attention,’ says Mellissa Prunty, reader in occupational therapy at Brunel University London, who has researched the relationship between handwriting and learning. ‘This deeper level of processing, which involves mapping sounds to letter formations, has been shown to support reading and spelling in children,’ Prunty says.”

Maybe “penmanship” isn’t such a safe topic after all. In this WALL-E world we live in, where they want to put us into driverless cars, have chatbots teach us and our children about relationships, and replace our thoughts, ideas and means of expression with the plastic perfection of AI, maybe something as personal, visceral and hand-made as handwriting is a little too dangerous. A little too human.