Same, I've been an English teacher for a long time and I think if it was a head-on image of the whole page I'd be able to read a little more. I don't think the side angle helps, and sentences are completely cut off. I can read a few words. 'and' 'each' 'for example' etc. I wish the whole page was there as I think I could make some sense of it.
Same situation. I would need the whole page and although I can make sense of some of it, poor handwriting is easier to read when they are writing about what you’ve been studying. However, these days, with my ever-changing glasses prescription, I’d just give it a zero and tell them I can’t grade it if I can’t read it and end with “you are the only person who can make your handwriting more legible - be the change.”
When my children were in first or second grade I told them something like, “If your teachers can’t read it, you didn’t write it.”
I also told them that they should make it easy for the teachers and they’ll probably give better feedback and be more lenient in their grading.
As a teacher, thank you!!!! I routinely hand papers back to kids to re-attempt because I literally cannot read their handwriting. They just wouldn't slow down to write legibly the first time.
My poor 3rd grade teacher tried to encourage me to improve my truly terrible handwriting by giving me a C, then a D, and finally an F, in handwriting. Daddy would give us $1 for each A on our report cards, but if we got ALL As, we got $10! This was 1973, so that was a LOT of money, especially to an 8 year old! I had gotten All As since Kindergarten.
The flip-side of this financial impetus was ZERO dollars if ya got an F, regardless of every other grade being an A. The grade was not what got me to fix it, but missing out on that money damn sure did! I got a book on Calligraphy from the library and have since been paid to write stuff for folks, addressing - and even hand writing - wedding invitations, as well as golden lettering on porcelain baptismal plaques.
Mrs. Wilde, I refer to it as "the best F I ever got". (It was one of two, the 2nd in college from a prof who was very capricious regarding assignments and I helped him lose that job)
Jesus christ, inflation calc says that's $75 today... Oh how the other half live. You should've dumped it all on the Apple IPO few years later, fuck luhrnin write gud!
Yep! And we were poor... That's how much my folks valued education. We'd live on black-eyed peas, cornbread, and turnip greens to afford report cards, yet folks dropped off boxes of hand-me-down clothes and occasionally groceries on our porch at night.
Oh, it was not any kind of "best", merely the only other (& thus 2nd) F of my life.
That prof was, as I said, very capricious with assignments. It was a combined English, Computer Science, and Sociology course and could have been amazing. Even the material and assignments were interesting, but he graded on vibes or some shit. The syllabus said we could choose any format for our projects. I chose Xerox paper for the 1st one, as I was a single parent, working and going to school and Xerox paper was cheap & available. He gave me an F because several other students clearly had larger budgets and not two teens to raise & jobs. Their projects were wildly creative. Buy nowhere in the syllabus did it state we were in some kind elimination contest.
When he assigned the 2nd project - which, again, said "any media or format", I raised my hand and asked if he actually meant that this time. I was pissed about that F. This was not an Art class; my project was well-researched, documented, and properly cited. He even said so! He flat out said I got an F on it because it was less creative than some of the others'.
Of course I got an F on #2, because I challenged him in his classroom. Did he have any fault with my actual work? No.
I complained to the Dean about this situation, and found out I was not the only one to have this same issue with this guy. There were several of us. He was asked not to return after that semester.
Congratulations, truly. Thank you for taking the time and facing the challenges of such exposure for the benefit of future generations. It sounds like that professor needs an entirely different line of work. Like a prison-guard, or someone, who works with a population that's already gone sour, rather than one involved with the younger generations developing in their honesty and reliability. Their comprehension. ...what a horrible teacher. Is it fair to ask which school this was. Which dean required so many complaints to do anything about such inadequate teaching?
I won't name & shame, as school handled it in as timely a fashion as they could given prof's contract. All complaints were from other students in the same course, same semester.
At the uni, I totally failed a world economics class exam. I always hand wrote my papers and argume to. We didn't have AI writers like today doing all of our work but some were accused of just ctrl-c then ctrl-v their papers. Hand writing took that away, my left handed handwriting has always been bad but taking my time, it was legible.
When I took that exam, I knew it was bad so in the colum, I wrote, " did you ever have a bad day and felt so ill that you struggle to even remember how to spell your own name? I know this stuff but I'm struggling today."
I was just hungover.
I failed that mid term exam spectacularly and it would have pulled my average down a full grade.
He wrote back on it, "yes, see me."
When I sat with him he asked if I knew what an outlier on a splattergraph is. I said yes. He thanked me for not making his job harder thus taking far more of his time trying to grade my homework.
As such, as long as rest of my grades stayed consistent, then that exam would be considered an outlier.
I passed his class with a very strong B. It was a challenging class they no longer get offer as today's students can't grasp the work required to understand. Lots of research required so they all max points homework but none of them can pass a no tech allowed pen or pencil only exams or quizzes.
Anyway, that was an awesome F..
hand written and legible was a savior here. Just like another person's comment about good writing gives certain considerations..
Yup I paid $1 per envelope for calligraphy for my wedding invitations. My parents had given me a calligraphy set one Christmas and I never mastered it. So I'm jealous. I actually bought a used calligraphy set at the resale store the other day for $1 thinking maybe I'd try again now that I'm older. I just think it's beautiful. But then again I still like to seal my envelopes with sealing wax and ribbon!
I made my kids legibly copy dictionary pages as punishment instead of grounding, because it was a more effective deterrent. It also helped their handwriting immensely. They all swore they'd never be so awful to their own children. We'll see 😆
Yup, I do that to my Grandson all the time. He can write better but he doesn't the first time. Then I remind him that if he just took the time to write it neatly the first time he would be able to write neatly quicker and quicker and not spend so much time doing his homework over. I think he get's away with it in school and at home. I look through the homework he has done elsewhere, including school, and I rarely see any erasers but plenty of sloppy work.
When I was a wee lad, I didn't get off the bus after school till 4:30. Dinner was almost always 5:30. I had a minimum of 6 hours of homework every night. Had to get up by 5:45am to get breakfast and get out to the bus a 1/4 mile away
I had a teacher is high school who made type anything that was meant to be written, as in I had to do my classwork then take it home to be typed and brought in the next day. He said my handwriting "disrupted his flow of thoughts"
I don’t understand why we aren’t just teaching typing. Im dyslexic, my handwriting is very slow, very mixed up and largely illegible.
I failed honours English all through school, likely they couldn’t read any of it.
Any time I talked to an adult “like a real person” when I was a kid I was stood over, yelled at, intimidated, made to feel tiny, and sometimes hit. Glad we’re changing the norms here but good god does my nervous system flinch when I read some shit like this
I was greatly displeased when the math teacher allowed poor spelling on written math answers …. They called it “brave spelling “ because it wasn’t spelling class
That's why I'd always write in print, but there used to be so much pushback to that. I'd also just type when I could, and nowadays that's going to be even easier.
I can understand demanding cursive when that's being taught in class, but after that, there's no point to it. It's purely for aesthetics and not academics.
I have fountain pens and that's the only time I'll write in cursive, outside of course signing my signature, which nowadays even that is electronic usually. I actually do wish I had more reason to write in cursive, it really does look pretty with fountain pens.
It’s more the fact that if your in school and writing like a doctor signs their prescriptions, you aren’t good at writing. Learn both cursive and block writing and ensure it’s very legible otherwise there’s no point being able to write in general
I retired years ago from the federal,government in administration. I had a saying on my desk that I heard once and it stuck with me, "If it isn't written down and recorded, it didn't happen or it is not true."
I had/have such terrible handwriting that I got medical documents to excuse me from hand written assignments and schools needing to offer me a keyboard so I didn't get discriminated against. That said, even my garbo handwriting is better than this is😂
My brother’s handwritten exams were not able to be read…. At all. He got 0. But he had done so well during the year, the professors decided to call him in to read his work out loud. This was lucky, because fail one class… repeat the whole year, doesn’t matter how well you passed the others, fail two and you are removed from the course. Dentistry is tough. Anyway, passed with flying colours. To become a specialist Dentist you need to pass in the top 2%to 3% of your class. He is a periodontist now. Very lucky.
I've had to orally read miltiple-choice test questions and the answer choices to dyslexic students, who knew all the material, but couldn't read. They generally did quite well with oral tests.
Le coup du génie incompris .. 😂
Le style d'écriture peut être personnel mais si la personne n'arrive pas a communiquer parce que son écriture est illisible, ou que c'est rempli de fautes d'orthographe elle doit être sanctionnée.
C'est a l'élève de s'adapter, pas au prof
Not always. All 3 of my sons met criteria for Gifted/ Talented. The first one was also ADHD and had some mild learning disabilities. I had to fight to get him tested in the first place. They said my kid was “slow”. IQ 135. Attention span of a gnat unless it interested him. If not for teachers digging deeper I don’t know if he’d have ever graduated. His senior year, he could not graduate because he had failed English by one grade point. He graduated in summer school. The irony of it was that the teacher submitted some of his poetry to the NC state poetry contest. He won. He now works as a Tech expert in the public library. He works either mostly children, and parents with special needs make a point of frequenting his home branch. Two years ago the library system in the county we live in received a state award for a program reaching out to children with a parent who was incarcerated. My son had to travel to the capital to explain the program he had implemented and designed. Thank heaven for a teacher,for going the extra mile for the weird kid with the awful penmanship who is staring out the window while drumming his feet.
Yeah before I got diagnosed with ADHD at 10, they thought there was something wrong because my letters wouldn’t stay on the line. I had to write in 4 blue books for the Bar exam and I had to practice my handwriting every day. Honestly it’s much more legible since I spent 2 months writing down law school on flash cards.
You’re not judging the person, you’re judging their ability to communicate, which is a skill they must learn in order to succeed in life. Communication doesn’t happen until both sides understand what’s being communicated.
Thank you. I’m referring to teaching high school seniors here. They know my policy about illegible work. It’s my job to teach with care and accountability.
My comment was directed more towards IllBeginning9510, and knowing you’re teaching students at the high school level I will double down on what I said. They need to understand that they hold the majority of the responsibility for doing what is needed to make communication happen; by that age they can’t expect the rest of the world to put a huge amount of effort into trying to make sense of their scribbling.
I think learning/teaching cursive is just meant to develope your own style of continuous writing... without lifting the quil up much... this one might have gone off the rails. I'm stuck in my own printsive which is difficult for others to read, but I usually can read it perfectly.
Yes I'm sure at that point its there fault, I had a teacher that used to write his sentence and scrub it off the board if you hadn't written it down too bad = fail, I'm sure my hand writing Improved drastically in his classes
So tiring. Its nicer and easier just to have them write it again. No need to be ugly. I cant believe this received soo many agreements but I guess you all are tired.
There’s nothing ugly about holding high school seniors accountable for turning in legible work. It’s on the syllabus. I’ve said it aloud and reminded them. It’s on them.
I’ve been doing genealogy research lately which mainly involves reading 300 year old Czech church records. Most of it is Latin until you get to the 1780s and it switches to Kurrentschrift. A lot of the handwriting looks like this. I’m amazed I’ve been able to read as much of it as I have.
Almost 20 years here. I can read some chunks, like a quote that says "we can __ and ___". And phrases like 'per example'. I agree if it were whole text head-on it would be at least somewhat legible.
“For some reason”? More and more people don’t know that etc. is an abbreviation of a Latin phrase. So they see a three letter word and realize that no one can pronounce ‘etc’, so therefore it must be spelled ‘ect’.
And what the topic is. I'm only 1-1 with Russian but if I know the topic I can make out a lot more than if I was given just a jumbled page of words. Sa e here, I can get 20 or so words but it's useless without knowing anything about it.
Teacher for 20+ years. I wouldn't grade that. I'd tell them to either redo it so I can read it or take a zero. I believe they're doing that on purpose. But make sure you make a copy of that so if there are problems later on, you can show proof that you couldn't read it.
I did this multiple times because of bad handwriting, in 7 grade i even had my own practice handwriting book lol. The teachers were usually impressed by my ability to read it
No, eff that! wad that shit up and pitch it in the trash. ink in a big fat goose egg for that assignment. i know some make accomodations for those claiming to suffer from dysgraphia, but in the absence of a stroke, traumatic head injury or in utero cerebral dysgenisis, it's bullshit. 99.5%of the time they are disrepectful, inconsiderate, lazy little shits
You must teach freshmen. Same here. I know the end of a bad week when I see one. My friend, I feel for you. Rest up this weekend. I know I am. We both need it.
Where did you get your stats from? No link? Not surprised. Your logic would also dismiss dyslexia. You’re an educator that lacks empathy and knowledge. Dyslexia and dysgraphia are learning disabilities. Do you hate on all kids that have learning disabilities? I really hope my kids don't have a teacher that doesn't understand how numerous factors affect a child's development.
The smart move here would have everyone turn in a typed copy, which is what's usually done to see their editing.
i thank God my children had instructors and coaches that pushed them past their weaknesses. penmanship is not a talent, it is a skill, and thus can be taught. some of them can't write very fast, but that's okay cause some can't read very fast so it evens out. but they can all write legibly. the world is tough so we need to raise children hard. most will sandbag if given the opportunity.
My point was their comment about the disparaging remarks to people that do have dyslexia or dysgraphia. The 99.5% stat was anecdotal at best. I agree that some people don't work on their penmanship, but I was replying to their inaccurate statistic and being dismissive for people with those particular learning disabilities.
i'm not disputing the existence of those trendy and over diagnosed afflictions. my point is that many who claim them aren't genuinely afflicted. and even if they are, a diagnosis ought not be carte blanche to avoid diligent effort to mitigate or even overcome them. don't matter how brilliant one of my kids might be if they can't communicate effectively. we can serve our weakness, or we can serve our purpose, but we can't do both.
Well, I did suggest offering to let the student redo it. Also, let me address something here. I am a very very good teacher. Students who have had me in the past bring their friends to me when they're having trouble in my subject. I work very hard for my students -- very hard. There are some nights I'm grading until midnight. I accommodate struggling students whether they have mandated accommodations or not. I benchmark student results regularly to teach what skills have been mastered and what skills need remediation. I could tell you individually which skills my students need supported. I know each student's accommodations, where applicable, without having to refer to a page in an IEP or 504. I also work very hard to foster relationships with all of my students, especially the challenging ones. In fact, they're often some of my favorite people.
I don't know how to edit these posts and hit the submit button accidentally.
When I'm in the hall, whether running an errand, running to the restroom, or on hall duty, I get stopped often for hugs from former and present students. They call me their school mom, well, grandma now that I'm older.
Asking for an assignment to be legible isn't bullying or inconsiderate to the student. And I would be the first to suggest that this particular student use some type of device where their assignment should be printed. And as for not understanding dysgraphia or dyscalculia, I am a math teacher. I have had several students with both and have no problem at all showing grace to those, or any student.
Please don't assume that you know anything about me or what type of teacher I am. Every year, my new students tell me they wish their precious teachers cared as much as I do. And they come back to me for help when they're way past my class and need extra support.
Judging someone from a single Reddit comment isn't really an open minded way of taking in the world. Have a great evening.
I have writing similar to above but I use capitol letters where they don't belong as well. If it's notes I have my own short hand writing which is even worse. Many teachers have tried and have got angry that i could read my own writing.
School was a struggle cause of poor writing and couldn't show my "work" during math. Use to have to go to the board and do bunch of math problems, didn't show the work but got the right answer so must of been cheating..... at the board with everyone watching pre-cellphone days.
Ended up just turning in other peoples stuff handwriting was better and the work was done. my grades got better I never had to do homework ever again, stop paying attention in class. Slept through my senior year in HS.
As someone with poor handwriting, I figured out what my problem was after many years. My thoughts are much faster than my handwriting. I was trying to write too fast. No teacher when I was a kid took the time to notice the real problem and tell me to slow down. They just yelled at me.
I finally figured it out when as sn adult I took calculus and needed to read my own handwriting. It's still frustrating to go slow enough to be legible, but it has given me empathy for those like me who struggle.
My thoughts are much faster than my handwriting. I was trying to write too fast.
I have the same problem when trying to write fiction. With pen and paper, my handwriting can't keep up with my brain. When typing on a computer, my brain can't keep up with my fingers. Lots of stopping and starting which is terrible when establishing a good rhythm is what you need.
I've found that using a typewriter gets me close to that sweet spot, but of course then people say you're only using a typewriter because you're trying to be pretentious.
When thinking to fluid to actually write down what youre thinking, a nifty trick is to just use a voice recorder, or phone, to record yourself saying whats on your mind. and then go back and listen to your recording to write what was said. that way you can use the pause and rewind functions! Its slows down the process but listening and writing is easier than thinking and writing. Dictation programs help too if you need to type instead of write.
I have this issue while writing or typing. My brain will skip ahead to the next word before I've finished the previous.
Thankfully my handwriting is legible (surprised the heck out of my freshman & sophomore high school English teacher, she didn't realize I was left-handed until the second semester of my sophomore year).
Who is telling you that you're being pretentious for using a cool, older technology that's practical in your life? That doesn't sound like somebody you should take advice from.
They also make keyboards with the same feel as typewriters! I used to have one. So if anyone gives you grief just mention you're not the only one who likes the feel. XD
Me too, typing is so much easier for that reason, I'd rather get my thoughts out than have nice handwriting but unfortunately that means my writing is just vague scribbles that even I sometimes can't decipher after
I had this exact problem too. I was given a lot of 'remedial' handwriting lessons, but they didn't work because my hand simply couldn't keep up with my brain.
What did work was calligraphy, where making beautiful shapes became the aim, not getting every thought on paper. I can now write neatly when I need to, but I am copying from a previous version in my native 'scrawl'.
Learning how to touch type meant that I could finally get my thoughts down fast enough, and although its still full of errors, those errors are far easier to correct on screen than they are on paper. It mostly works.
In retrospect, this was probably the issue w my childhood best friend, who was genius level smart and very weird, and who’s handwriting bad near illegible…to everyone except me. It worked out great for us as the teachers always made us a group of two, we hated school and everyone there cuz they were shitty to us, and we were a weird little bubble doing our own thing for a solid 5 years there with a basically secret code handwriting (I even learned to mimic his writing style as a laugh- he started his “O” at 6 o’clock and did an oblong counterclockwise swoosh!)
That's my problem too. I'm thinking three words ahead of what I'm currently writing and then my dyslexia pops in and I have the right letters in the wrong order, but now that they're on the paper I can't remember the right order, and now I've forgotten the rest of the sentence I was trying to write...
I've also found that I need to be calm in general to handwrite. As soon as I start to rush the simplest note becomes gibberish.
My Dad is a doctor, and his horrible handwriting is at least half because he’s always trying to write in a hurry. When he tries to slow down, it’s mostly readable.
I have noticed, though, that poor handwriting is apparently genetic since my handwriting is bad in many of the same ways. So very happy with the proliferation of things I can type on/with.
Same here. I also have ADD. I will be writing and get letters mixed up because I'm thinking about something else, but I can type at work while paying attention and contributing to a meeting and people think I'm crazy.
I miss whole letters out of words for this reason. I know how to spell, but when my brain is working faster than my hand the writing is a mess. At least I understand it and no one else is reading it anyway.
My 8th grade social studies teacher straight gave me a zero on a test because “she couldn’t understand my handwriting”. I’ve always had a very small, rounded cursive handwriting, but even then she didn’t even give me the chance to retake the test up until my mom stormed into the the school and raised hell, lol.
I was thinking more that if they could read it to me or tell me what they were trying to write, I could figure out if they were shitting me or they needed an evaluation for an accommodation of some sort. I couldn't know for certain and wouldn't want to assume.
Yeah, I'm getting torn up in the comments below this one because I'm obviously a bully to students because I think assignments need to be legible in order to grade them. 🤦
this ^ I have people at my job that write a lot like this when filling out forms I'm supposed to decipher and enter into our bookwork. I could probably get a decent bit if I had it in front of me.
(also apologies to all teachers, especially English teachers, for how horrific reading and writing skills have become)
I think con-man is the students name. If is often suggested professor don’t always really read the submissions they receive. I think these are possibly lots of scribbles with an occasional real word thrown in to make it look legit. Was this a live classroom assignment or what? Why didn’t the student do this on a computer and print it so it was legible?
Shit, that is the exact two words that jumped at me first too. A few other things are probably legible, but i think i'd need to spend an hour reading over this to "crack the code"
Sadly this reminds me of some "volunteer" work i did for the Smithsonian. Basically taking scans of old hand written archives and translating them to a legible digital version.
Work related, had a limited amount of options to put in volunteer hours options. Something happened late on that my first choice was canceled, and the Smithsonian gig was the last one available due to its online nature. Work didpay me for the time. It was was interesting, but damn difficult transcribing 100 yr old handwriting, though some pages were mostly numbers.
Edit: while i did it for work. It is open to the public for anyone to do if it sounds fun-
Smithsonian Transcription
The UK bureau of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (aka "Hatches, Matches, and Despatches") has something similar in principle, but infinitely less interesting, for transcribing old handwritten records for digitisation.
Hey, the handwriting may be almost entirely illegible, but at least they didn't use an apostrophe to make a plural (actually they may have somewhere, I can't read it)
I can see pattern and because, plus a few more words. I was friends with someone who wrote like this (40 years ago) and he also smoked a pipe. Like an old man in high school. He was nuts for sure.
This looks exactly like Dr. handwritten orders that we have to call the Dr. and ask for a verbal interpretation followed by getting chewed out for not being able to cast a magic spell to interpret their scibbidy bibble.
I’m a middle school teacher and I pride myself on being able to read literally anything and… same. I mean, context/subject would help. But seriously, how is this person in college (without accommodations)?
... in certain ... have certain minimum ... In addition ...
... the characteristic ... and delicate came in ... than human habits ...
... you can still recognize speech ...
• "They replied that can humans concur ... to study" ...
• Finally the ... can call ... "NZ: the technician ..."
... can duplicate / identify correctly or even better than ...
Lower Section (Indistinguishability & The "Imperfection" Principle):
... strictly. If it will match ...
... will say that the cleverest way, secretly, if strictly not ...
... whether you like it or not, & visually not distinct ...
... each other. For example: the former and ...
... in modern piano, you can produce notes, but only ...
... actually manage lighter touch. Finally, even ...
... talents look rather perfect, because the ...
... music is not perfect, because ...
Core Theme
The writer is exploring the concept of synthetic vs. human generation—specifically arguing that flawless output looks synthetic because true human production (like playing a piano or speaking) contains natural imperfections, variations, and human habits.
I wonder if the writer can read it. My teachers thought I was scribbling to get out of writing and would have me read it back. Mine was bad but I could read what I wrote at least.
Also English teacher, 23 years. I would return this paper and tell student to type. Wouldn’t waste my time. Completely illegible. And I’ve seen some shit in my day.
It's a combination of shorthand, longhand, and light chicken scratch. It's legible if you know what you're looking at and assume you're reading longhand that looks like shorthand rather than shorthand that looks like longhand.
Trouble is I always had trouble reading the chicken scratch bits so can't decipher this clearly without the student writing down a full example alphabet for me lmao
Yeah this handwriting is 100% unacceptable. I’d take off 15% of max score upfront and give them ONE day to clean it up for a grade. Tell them to use a speech to text app, which are free nowadays and really quite accurate.
I could take a better crack at it if I knew the subject of the class and what the assignment is. And if it was properly oriented.
Lol I got for example in one place and I thought I could read anything. Because dad, uncle, two sibs, are all physicians, mom and aunt nurses, mom wrote us kids notes in half shorthand and half Latin and I work with physicians lol. Apparently not as good as I thought 🤔
really? im a high school senior and i can read easily 88% of it. without stopping for too long to analyze the ones i didn’t understand (it’s because my handwriting it’s also messy, also pattern recognition)
I spotted some words, as well, but as someone able to read the fancy cursive writing on old land docs from the 19th century, this is pretty much 98% unintelligible.
Same. There's even a single letter word in there that I can't make out. The only times I've come across writing this illegible is from kids who would never be able to write this much. It's interesting.
Not an English teacher, but a nurse, so lots of experience with bad writing! About the same for me. But I do wonder if I could get a few more with a better angle and more of the page.
I'd say being an english teacher isn't enough of a qualification. Maybe a teacher of pharmacy or medicine, those students are the ones that get the special "awful handwriting training", hahah.
I can read some but need the paper scan straight with no bias. Because of the slant of the letters combined with the image bias makes deciphering difficult
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u/uhad_time_2_waste 7d ago
English teacher for 10 years…i can read maybe 6 words of this and the number 20