When I was in elementary school, I was required, like most students, to take a basic penmanship class.  We learned the basics of writing in print, in cursive, and in some weird hybrid style they claimed was italics.  (I learned later that this third style was just a particular form of cursive writing, but I’ve since forgotten it completely.)

Throughout my life, my handwriting has changed dramatically.  At one point in time, I was graded on my ability to take notes.  My teachers would collect our notebooks at the end of the week and tell us whether we were recording too much or too little.  To my surprise, though, I always got low marks for my note taking.  Not because I didn’t write enough – each page was numbered and cross referenced – but because I often couldn’t read my own handwriting later. [Read more...]