The write stuff – tools for getting down those thoughts
What better way to interest children in writing than to share the history of the pencils and paper that they are using?
The contents of their pencil case may not seem very special. But these simple tools are the product of thousands of years of development. They perform a function which would have once seemed magical – setting down our thoughts outside our minds.
About 4,000BC, the development of farming, trade and cities required something that relied on more than memory. Writing made it possible to set down commands, agreements and laws and to develop a historical record of events.
The first writers scratched the surface of a moist clay tablet with a bronze or bone tool. By 3,000BC Egyptians were writing on papyrus scrolls, using thin brushes or pens made from reeds. An alternative was parchment, then paper from late medieval times.
The Romans developed thin sheets of wax mounted on wooden tablets, which they would inscribe with a metal stylus. If they’d finished with the text, they could use the flat end of the stylus to smooth out the wax and start afresh.
Quill pens first appeared in Seville about 600AD. Users found their lightness gave the writer increased speed and flexibility, and smaller letters were joined together in the first forms of ‘handwriting’. Metal nibs gradually supplanted the quill pen during the 19th Century and in 1884 the first fountain pen was invented.
Pencils came along after the discovery of graphite, which when formed into a ‘stylus’ and encased in a hollowed out wooden stick provided a simple and cheap writing implement. The first mass-produced pencils were made in Nuremburg, Germany in 1662. Until rubber was invented, pencil marks were erased by using a small, dampened wad of bread. The first pencil with a rubber on the end was manufactured in the US in 1858.
The ballpoint pen was invented in the 1930s by Laszlo Biro and immediately secured by the RAF as a robust writing tool for use at altitude. Early ballpoints were very expensive and messy and it was not until 1950 that the Frenchman Marcel Bich developed a process for manufacturing his BiC Cristal pens which lowered the unit cost to an affordable level.
The Tokyo Stationery company launched felt-tipped pens in the 1960s, followed by highlighters and markers. Roller ball pens, an improvement on the ballpoint, came along in the 1980s.
Despite the rise of computers, pen and paper are still commonly used and the fountain pen has become a status symbol. Clearly, the successor to the humble reed still has a few years left in it yet.
Why not share this information with your class and create a timeline to show the changes that have happened over the years. How do the children think this will change over the next twenty years? Let them draw their ideas and share their designs!