Handwriting and Learning

The Theorist from Fade Theory sent me an email alerting me to a fascinating article from Inside Higher Ed. The basis of the article is that, in the classroom, handwritten work is often the best work. Judge for yourself:

Amelia, a university sophomore, scores a 60 on her first academic paper. On her second she scores a 60 again. On her third paper, she pulls up to an 80 — mostly due to extensive rewrites. Yet on her midterm and final, she received an astounding 90 and 85. Not only was her paragraph structure and use of quotations significantly better, but her ability to sequence ideas and support claims had taken a leap. Even her mechanics (grammar, sentence structure and punctuation) had improved.

I’d like to say that these two high scores came at the end of the semester; this would prove what an effective instructor I was. Instead, they came at odd times — the first A came just after the second paper (which scored a D). The solid B paper did come at the end of the semester. The difference was in how the papers were produced. Both the 90 and 85 papers were handwritten in-class timed essays that constituted the midterm and final. The much lower scores were for computer-generated papers that she produced out of class. These, of course, could be rewritten over and over before the due dates.

I’d like to say that Amelia’s experience is an anomaly. But I can’t. In fact, this semester, 8 of my 20 sophomore English composition students scored significantly better on in-class essays written by hand in a timed situation. Some jumped more than a full grade level. In my three freshman composition classes, almost 20 of 60 students excelled when allowed to write in class rather than compose typed papers on their own time. In fact, at a large community college in California where I taught for six years, I frequently saw 10 to 25 percent of my developmental- and freshman-level writers do significantly better when asked to compose in-class with a topic given just before a two-hour writing period.

Read the rest of, "The Surprising Process of Writing," at InsideHigherEd.com.

This is interesting stuff and raises a lot of questions. Is it simply the slower pace and deliberate writing that paper and pen demands? The comments at the end of the article make for good reading as well. It's a very thought provoking piece. Thanks, Theorist!

Comments

[Michael Shea]

About two years ago I began writing short stories in longhand with a pen on paper. I found that, although slower, I got much more into the story. I broke away from all other distractions and every sentense was already spoken in my mind before I wrote it down on paper.

It turns out that a lot of professional authors handwrite some, if not all, of their work. Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Stephen King, and Joe Haldeman have all handwritten books. King handwrote Dreamcatcher with a Waterman fountain pen while Neal Stephenson proudly stated in his books that he handwrote the entire Baroque cycle on 100% cotton paper.

[Michael Leddy]

Glad to see you picked up on Shari Wilson's piece. I've noticed the same thing over many semesters of teaching -- in-class writing is often far more coherent. For me, the best explanation is that there's more opportunity to concentrate, far fewer distractions.

Toni Morrison is another writer who writes by hand. And the manual typewriter still has loyal users. The novelist (and poet) Paul Auster has written an essay about his typewriter, an Olympia portable ("The Story of My Typewriter").

[Jenn]

Clive Barker writes all of his books by hand and someone else types them up.

As for me, I definitely notice a difference between my writing that starts out on paper and that which starts out on screen. I just think there's something organic about the process of holding a pen in the hand, that does not translate to typing on a keyboard. For anything important, I try to do most of my first drafts on paper and do my edits on screen.

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I try to do everything by word editing tool because it looks more professional than handwrote. I know some people that they do first by handwrite and then on computer. I know that the result is better than I got for do it directly on pc.

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It's a really great thing that you've published this kind of topic here..

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I know people that they prefer to do first handwrite and then they type on the pc and they get excellent results. I know that everybody want to save some time but we have to search for best way to do it.

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