When I was young, handwriting was something that my friends and I spent hours perfecting. I’m not referring to writing with one’s hand, I mean good ole cursive writing.

The first letter of my name is meant to be written with a flourish…it looks so much more elegant. Throw in a fine point brown ink pen and my world is almost visually perfect.

Face it, everything looks fancy schmancy when hand-cursived.

Cursived?

Yes. I just made up a new part of speech for the word “cursive”. I’m an English teacher; us English teaching brain expanders have a special license that allows us to create words as needed.

Fast forward a couple of decades and other than the “how to make the neatest cursive look illegible 101”,  class doctors are required to take, along side of the pharmacist’s, “learning to decode doctor’s handwriting 101”, it appears that the beautifully elegant cursive is on its last legs.

Texting is making a bold impression with the teenage crowd these days. They can type out faster with one finger and no eyes on the screen than I ever could using the two handed qwerty method. And I’m pretty fast. Some of the acronyms they use are mighty LOL too…I’m not sure the cursive flourish would work when I’m ROTFL.

So…for today’s creative challenge, I pulled out a stunning piece of work recently done by my brilliant grade seven minds. We read a story about a man who had a funny signature and afterward I had each young mind sign their name in their most elegant and flourishy cursive handwriting. Each of their signatures is unique and as special as they are. I love it.

For day three of the creativity challenge, I took their masterpiece and transformed it into a poster that celebrated their creative minds.

With minds as magnificent and flourish-filled as these, I feel that we have a little more time before “cursive” becomes extinct.

LOL

The Cursive Fairy Presents