Applying Curriculum Models
Western Governor’s University
D185- Designing Curriculum & Instruction II- OLM1
A1: Educational Setting
The curriculum will be implemented in a 4th grade classroom of 23 students. The curriculum proposal is
for cursive writing in the ELA content area.
A2: Curricular Goal
The curricular goal for implementing this curriculum would be to improve student’s writing
abilities and penmanship skills. Focusing on penmanship skills through cursive writing would help
students learn to write legibly and increase their abilities to write longer text by hand.
A3: Curriculum Rationale
In fourth grade, students are tasked with a lot of writing and many of my students do not have the
writing stamina to keep up with the writing demands in our ELA curriculum. My students struggle to
produce written text, especially when assessed over writing standards. Many students produce sloppy
writing that is hard to read. Cursive writing is an extremely important skill for students to learn because
it increases brain development and fine motor skills. Cursive writing makes learning easier and allows
students to retain more information while putting their thoughts to paper in an effortless way. “Printing
is more difficult than cursive due to the frequent stop-and-start motion when forming letters” (Hatfield,
, 2018). Cursive will enable my students to write more fluently and effortlessly, which will help them
tremendously with our current fourth grade curriculum and help them meet the ELA reading and writing
standards. Cursive writing has also been shown to build students’ self-confidence and motivation ( 5
Benefits of Explicitly Teaching Cursive Handwriting, n.d.). I believe a cursive writing curriculum will
benefit my fourth-grade students by increasing their penmanship, fine motor skills, reading and
writing fluency, and comprehension.
Western Governor’s University
D185- Designing Curriculum & Instruction II- OLM1
A1: Educational Setting
The curriculum will be implemented in a 4th grade classroom of 23 students. The curriculum proposal is
for cursive writing in the ELA content area.
A2: Curricular Goal
The curricular goal for implementing this curriculum would be to improve student’s writing
abilities and penmanship skills. Focusing on penmanship skills through cursive writing would help
students learn to write legibly and increase their abilities to write longer text by hand.
A3: Curriculum Rationale
In fourth grade, students are tasked with a lot of writing and many of my students do not have the
writing stamina to keep up with the writing demands in our ELA curriculum. My students struggle to
produce written text, especially when assessed over writing standards. Many students produce sloppy
writing that is hard to read. Cursive writing is an extremely important skill for students to learn because
it increases brain development and fine motor skills. Cursive writing makes learning easier and allows
students to retain more information while putting their thoughts to paper in an effortless way. “Printing
is more difficult than cursive due to the frequent stop-and-start motion when forming letters” (Hatfield,
, 2018). Cursive will enable my students to write more fluently and effortlessly, which will help them
tremendously with our current fourth grade curriculum and help them meet the ELA reading and writing
standards. Cursive writing has also been shown to build students’ self-confidence and motivation ( 5
Benefits of Explicitly Teaching Cursive Handwriting, n.d.). I believe a cursive writing curriculum will
benefit my fourth-grade students by increasing their penmanship, fine motor skills, reading and
writing fluency, and comprehension.
