In many high schools across the U.S., chromebooks and online assignments are more used than traditional handwritten work. However, physical handwriting offers notable benefits. According to Scientific America, students tend to recall the alphabet more effectively when they trace letters instead of typing them
Stephany Rudeen, an English teacher at McPherson High School, notes that “handwriting can sometimes help students slow down their thoughts.” She prefers to assign paper tasks because students are generally more likely to submit these assignments on time. “When an assignment is given online, students often forget to turn it in by the time they leave class,” Rudeen explained.
Another advantage of handwritten assignments is that they reduce the likelihood of students seeking online help, such as from AI tools. However, a drawback of handwritten work is that not all students have readable handwriting.
Rudeen admits that handwriting may aid students’ thought processes, but she often struggles to read their written papers. “I can’t read the handwriting half the time,” she said.
Phoebe Barnett, a sophomore at McPherson High School, said she loves handwriting when writing a rough draft of an essay. She noted that handwriting makes it easier to “throw all your thoughts down on paper and then fix it up on a doc.” Barnett also said that she likes handwriting notes more than an essay because “when handwriting notes I can slow down my thoughts and process the information better rather than typing mindlessly”.
Handwriting can make you slow down and think about the words you are writing down while when typing you can just flow through without paying attention to what you are writing. For some people, whose brain runs faster than they can write, typing is awesome! Kevin Garcia freshman at McPherson High School says, “Sometimes my brain is going faster than I can write and I feel like I miss information, but with typing, I can write down everything I need and go back to it later to look over”.
Garcia is not a big fan of handwriting. “My hand starts to hurt when I write on paper.” For Garcia handwriting is less beneficial because he has to try and worry about making his writing readable and nice which for him slows down his brain in a way that makes him lose focus. “I dont have to worry about making my handwriting look good so I can just type what I’m thinking and not worry about it.”
There are many different perspectives on the benefits and drawbacks of handwriting. Some people need to handwrite to think through their thoughts while reading and writing, while others need to be typing as fast as their brain is thinking. Handwriting can have a lot of benefits but it does have to depend on how a certain person’s brain can process information and if they like handwriting over typing.
