Oddly enough, I read on the BBC news website that Indiana has decided to stop requiring students to learn handwriting. This made me a little bit sad initially, and I really had no idea why I was attached to the idea of cursive or if I really thought it was that important. But when I put it into the context of Multiliteracies, I decided that my lament was that our conception of multiliteracy is limited largely to the technological and functional, and that we no longer focus on the ways we communicate with each other as an art. The art of handwriting was a very special act whereby we manifest words as artfully as we conceived them, and while people will surely say that typing is perhaps similar, the fact is that handwriting adds another layer of nuance, of personality, and vulnerability to our words – and also extends the artistic process that begins with the inspiration to express certain thoughts.
multiliteracyrevolution 