Hannelise Lerida ENC 3417 Writing, Literacy, and Technology Monday 4:30pm-5:45pm 0m01

Baron, Dennis. A Better Pencil. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

The chapter on National Handwriting Day talks about the advancement of writing technologies and how it has changed the writing world all together. The focus is on all the writing tools from past decades and the decrease on the use of the pen and pencil because of technology such as the laptop. With the near death of the pen and pencil, it is questioned if handwriting will forever disappear.

This chapter goes hand in hand with the whole class since the focus is on technology and literacy. I do, however, feel that this chapter is very similar to Barons chapter 7, Trusting the Text. In the chapter, it conveys that many readers can be suspicious of any writing that is not hand written. Such thing has brought the writers to make their writing more reliable by using dates, signatures, seals etc It goes on to explaining that sometimes what you see or read is not always real, which is why writing can sometimes be mistrusted. I think this ties up well with the National Handwriting Day because both talk about the importance of handwriting and how technology has changed the perception of people when it comes down to writing.

When I read both chapters, it reminded me of the many times I have seen my friends writing. They either use their computer or cell phones, but I barely see any of them using a pen or paper. Though I do believe that it is much easy to use the laptop or cell phone for writing, I think handwritten notes and stories are much more appealing than advanced technology writing. In my experience, I feel that the paper and pen is important because it also gives you an identity. One thing Ive learned while working on my group project is that although we have many different identities, whether it is through the use of Facebook, LinkIn, Twitter and other social media, our handwriting gives away much more of our identity

than any other form of writing. Just by analyzing the words, shapes and such would we be able to tell what kind of person the author is, but when we read something that has been written using the computer, it is difficult to figure out who the author really is. Thus, the mistrust of text comes into play. There are so many ways to fake something using all the advanced technology, but it is rare to see fakeness through handwriting. Another thought that crossed my mind was that of toddlers. When I was younger, I had to learn to write cursive. Though the book does mention that the thought of teaching children to write using computers has come across, I do not believe it should happen. I believe that everyone should rely a little less on technology and teach the same things that they used to when I was younger, handwritten cursive. I found this whole topic very interesting and has made me question what the future will be like. Will technology take over all classrooms? Will pen and paper cease to exist in classrooms? Will future generations forget handwriting?