Summary
In Sara’s Task 4 post, she chose the handwriting activity. She reflected on how handwriting feels more personal and recognizable, sharing how she can identify her family members by their writing. She also described a past student who, when worried about penmanship, said, “This is just my font,” a phrase that stuck with her. She noted the differences between handwriting and digital writing, observing that handwriting feels connected and personal, while digital tools allow for easier editing, organization, and sharing.
Why I Chose This Post
I chose this post because I did the alternate activity (potato stamping) and wanted to compare my experience with someone who chose handwriting. Reading Sara’s perspective gave me insight into the other task and how she balanced the challenges and benefits of handwriting versus digital writing.
Reflection
Sara’s reflection echoed many of my own experiences. She mentioned that when she writes by hand, her ideas flow quickly, though often only she can read them. I feel the same: my writing starts neat but grows messy, and I rely heavily on spell check and quick edits when typing. I especially connected with her point about recognizing family handwriting. My dad’s writing was nearly illegible, but it was distinctly “him.” When Sara shared her student’s comment, “This is just my font,” it immediately reminded me of my dad and made me think about my own students. Sometimes handwriting is simply part of their identity, not something practice will “fix.”
Even though we did different activities, our takeaways were similar. We both found that our tasks had a strong sense of individuality. Sara’s post emphasized handwriting as personal and recognizable, while my stamping highlighted the visual and tactile challenges of creating letters. Sara’s post emphasized handwritten work, which highlighted physical and personal literacy, whereas my potato stamping used a visual and creative approach on paper, showing how different tools or media can shape the ways we express ideas. Both showed how literacy can be expressed in many forms, including personal, visual, and digital, and how each balances individuality with efficiency.
This makes me wonder how different students might experience similar literacy tasks, and whether giving them options to write by hand, visually, or digitally might reveal more about their individual learning styles and identities.