History of Writing

Key Competences

History of Writing

To investigate different materials used

to write on: clay, papyrus, parchments,

paper, etc

To discover how ink was made and used

throughout the ages.

To research how technology has

improved the digital means of

communication

To find out how the Mesopotamians and

Egyptians wrote.

To research how writing developed

through ages

To discover which writing instruments

were used in the past

To learn about the importance of scribes

in Ancient Civilizations.

Linguistic competence

Vocabulary related to writing instruments,

Ancient Civilizations…..

Digital ICT competence

Accessing websites for the purpose of

investigation

Using the e-mail to share information.

Making a PowerPoint presentation

Temporal competence

Comprehension of the time-scale of

developing of writing.

Interpersonal and civic competence

Investigating, sharing information and

producing texts together.

Autonomy and personal initiative

Using a website to research more about

aspects of different topics.

Knowledge and interaction with our

world

Discussing and sharing information

using appropriate technology

Comparing…..

Cultural and artistic expression

Drawing or searching for pictures to

illustrate findings

Describing illustrations and discovering

their historical value

Evaluating a historical text or document

Contenido:

Objectives

Key Competences

1

Writing in Mesopotamia 2

Writing in Egypt 3

The invention of paper 4

The invention of Ink 5

Brief history of writing instruments

6

Gutemberg, printing and 7

Linotype and offset 8

Typewriting 9

Computers and Printers 10

Mobile text messeges and email 11

The Phoenician Alphabet 12

How did we learn? 12

How did we evaluate? 12

Crosscurricular Project 2º ESO “A”

Course 2010/11

History of Writing

Pie de imagen o gráfico.

Objectives

IES Chapatal CLIL 2º ESO

Santa Cruz de Tenerife

THE STORY OF A SIGN

The signs changed over many years, and this is

the story of what happened to just one of the

signs:

Around 3100 B.C. people began to record

amounts of different crops.

Barley was one of the most important crops in

southern Mesopotamia and when it was first

drawn it looked like this.

Scribes drew the sign on soft clay tablets using a

pointed tool, probably made out of a reed.

The barley sign changed shape

when the scribes used a writing tool with a

squaredone off end instead of a point.

The end of this tool was used to

press wedge shapes like these into clay

tablets.

CUNEIFORM WRITING

Cuneiform writing was used to record a variety of information

such as temple activities, business and trade. Cuneiform was also

used to write stories, myths, and personal letters.

Writing in Mesopotamia. By Miguel A. Evora, Dylan Medina & Laura Mirabal

Writing in Mesopotamia

Página 2 History of Writing

THE DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

Over five thousand years ago, people living in southern

Mesopotamia developed one of the earliest writing systems

in the world. The system was developed so that information

could be recorded. A reed stylus was the main writing tool

used by Mesopotamian scribes.

This writing system began with pictures or signs drawn on

clay tablets. Later the signs developed into a script we call

“cuneiform”

WHAT DID ANCIENT EGYPTIANS WRITE ON?

Hieroglyphs were written on papyrus reed.

Papyrus was a water or marsh plant that grew in an-

cient Egypt. It was cut into strips, pressed together,

pounded, and dried to make sheets which were writ-

ten on. 'Papyri' is the plural form of the word papyrus.

The Egyptians also carved hieroglyphs onto

stone and painted them on the walls of tombs and

temples.

Writing in Egypt

Writing in Egypt

and shorter form of hieroglyphs).

They were the only people in An-

cient Egypt who could read and

wri te the sa cred h i ero-

glyphs.Scribes had two main du-

ties:They kept government re-

cords and wrote letters for the

Pharoe

WHAT IS EGYPTIAN WRITING CALLED?

The ancient Egyptians believed that

it was important to record and communicate

information about religion and government.

Thus, around 3100 BC they invented written

scripts that could be used to record this infor-

mation. Using these scripts, scribes were able

to preserve the beliefs, history and ideas of

ancient Egypt on temple and tomb walls and

on papyrus scrolls.

The most famous of all ancient Egyp-

tian scripts is hieroglyphics. However,

throughout three thousand years of ancient

Egyptian civilisation, at least three ot-

her scripts were used for different purposes

This Egyptian writing used small

pictures to represent different ob-

jects, actions, sounds or ideas.

Some pictures stood for whole

words

The individual characters

are called 'hieroglyphs' There were

more than 700 hieroglyphs.

The word hieroglyph is

m a d e f r o m t w o G r e e k

words:Hieros meaning holy;

Glyphe meaning writing.So hiero-

glyph means holy writing.

The Egyptian scribes had

to learn how to read and write hie-

roglyphs and hieratic (a quicker

WHAT DID ANCIENT EGYPTIANS WRITE WITH?

Egyptian writing was done with pen and ink

on fine paper (papyrus)

Egyptian "pens" were

thin, sharp reeds, which they

would dip into ink to write with.

The ink and paint came

from plants which they crushed

and mixed with water.

HOW TO READ HIEROGLYPHCS

This writing was uncovered by the French

Champollion through the Rosetta Stone.

How do you know which way to read Hieroglyphs?

You need to look closely at the hieroglyphs to

discover. It depends on which way the people or ani-

mals are facing. For example, if an animal hieroglyph

faces right, you read from right to left. If it faces left, you

read from left to right (the same way that we do). Just to

confuse you, sometimes they read hieroglyphs from top

to bottom.

Writing in Egypt. By Camila Balsa, Fernando Delgado & Alejandro Santos


QUILL PEN AND DIP PEN

The writing instrument that

dominated for the longest period in

history (over one-thousand years) was

the quill pen. Introduced around 700

A.D., the quill is a pen made from a

bird feather. Goose feathers were the

most common; swan feathers were of a

premium grade being scarcer and

more expensive. For making fine lines,

crow feathers were the best, and then

came the feathers of the eagle, owl,

hawk and turkey.

Quill pens were used for

writing with ink. But quill pens had a

problem: they lasted for only a week.

Quill pens went into decline

after the invention of the metal pen. It

was first patented in America in 1810.

The dip pen is a metal nib with capilla-

ry channels mounted on a holder. It has

no ink reservoir.


PENCIL AND MECHANICAL PENCIL

In 1795, Nicholas Jacques Conté

discovered a method of mixing powde-

red graphite with clay and forming the

mixture into rods that were then fired in

a kiln. By varying the ratio of graphite to

clay, the hardness of the graphite rod

could also be varied. This method of

manufacturing, which had been earlier

discovered by the Austrian Joseph

Hardtmuth of Koh-I-Noor in 1790,

remains in use.

The first patent for a refillable

p e n c i l w i t h l e a d - p r o p e l l i n g

mechanism was issued to Sampson

Mordan and John Isaac Hawkins in

Britain in 1822. After buying out Haw-

kins' patent rights, Mordan entered

into a business partnership with Ga-

briel Riddle from 1823 to 1837.

Brief history of writing instruments.

By Leticia Glez, Mª Victoria Hdez & Adrián Vera



especially from the jointed bamboo

plant. They converted bamboo stems

into a primitive form of fountain pen.

They cut one end into the form of a

pen nib or point. A writing fluid or ink

filled the stem, squeezing the reed

forced fluid to the nib.

STYLUS,BRUSHES AND REED PEN

Styluses were first used by the

ancient Mesopotamians (around 3400

BC) and Egyptians (around 3100 BC).

They made styluses in various

materials: reeds that grew on the sides

of the rivers, bones and metals.

Cuneiform was entirely based

on the "wedge-shaped" mark that the

end of a cut reed made when pushed

into a clay tablet.

The Egyptians developed a

form of writing with pictures. For

writing on papyrus scrolls scribes used

thin reed brushes or reed pens.

GREEK NEEDLE AND ROMAN REED-PEN

The earliest means of writing

using pen and paper was developed by

the Greeks. They employed a writing

stylus, made of metal, bone or ivory, to

place marks upon wax-coated tablets

The Romans (753BC) also used

a metal stylus for writing upon thin

sheets of wax (on wooden tablets). When

they no longer needed the writing, they

rubbed it out with the flat end of the

stylus.

The Romans created a reed-pen

perfect for parchment and ink, from the

hollow tubular-stems of marsh grasses,



http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Stainless_steel_pen_nib_by_Joseph_Schuler%2C_Budapest%2C_Hungary_1910_.jpg

GLOSSARY

Seeds: Any propagative part of a plant, including tubers,

bulbs, etc.

Resin: It’s a secretion of many plants, of an amber color.

Cartridge: It’s a component of an inkjet printer that con-

tains the ink.

Dye: is a substance which is used to change

the colour of something.

Walnut: It’s a light brown edible nut. It has a

wrinkled shape and a very hard round shell.

The Invention of Ink

History

The ancient Chinese used black ink and

wrote with pens or brushes. It was com-

posed of black carbon and rubber. The

Chinese emperors wrote with purple ink.

Different colours of ink were used accor-

ding to status.

Components

Dye for ink came from metals, plants and

marine animals, such as squid or octopus.

Walnut ink was used by many artists to

get a golden brown colour for their pictu-

res. Other components were added to

make ink more permanent, such as re-

sins.

Ink in printers

Nowadays, in the use of printers, we use

ink cartridges.

Black is always separate and colours

come from mixing together magenta,

yellow or cyan

The Invention of Ink. By Adrián Martín, Gloria Rguez. & Carolina Ibañez

Página 5 History of Writing IES Chapatal CLIL 2º ESO



FOUNTAIN PEN AND INKWELLS

The first fountain pens appeared in the

1850s. In the 1870s Duncan MacKinnon, and

Alonzo T. Cross created stylographic pens. Sty-

lographic pens are now used mostly for drafting

and technical drawing but were very popular in

the decade beginning in 1875.

Inkwells began in the 1880s, with the

invention of the first practical fountain pen by

Lewis Waterman. With its own supply of ink, the

flow of the ink was emitted in a regular, contro-

llable stream.

BALLPOINT PEN

In 1938, László Bíró, a Hungarian

newspaper editor, with the help of

his brother George, a chemist, began

to work on designing new types of

pens including one with a tiny ball in

its tip that was free to turn in a socket.

As the pen moved along the paper,

the ball rotated, picking up ink from

the ink cartridge and leaving it on the

paper.

The first real advance in papermaking came with

the development of a smooth material for the mold cove-

ring, which allowed the reuse of the mold immediately…

From China, papermaking moved to Korea, whe-

re production of paper began as early as the 6th century

AD.

Taught by Chinese papermakers, Tibetans began

to make their own paper as a replacement for their tradi-

tional writing materials.

The Invention of Paper

The shape of Tibetan paper books still reflects

the long, narrow format of the original palm-leaf books.

By the 10th century, Arabians were substituting linen

fibers for wood and bamboo, creating a finer sheet of pa-

per. Although paper was of fairly high quality now, the

only way to reproduce written work was by hand, a

difficult process.

The Invention of Paper. By Claudia Pérez, Álvaro Berrocal & Aurora Bethencourt

The Invention of Paper


For centuries, people tried to discover better

surfaces on which to record their thoughts. Wood, stone,

ceramics, cloth, bark, metal, silk, bamboo, and tree leaves

were all used as a writing surface at one time or another.

Paper was created by the Chinese about two

thousand years ago (200 BC).

The next development in writing material was with

the ancient Egyptians. It is from them that the word paper is

derived. Paper comes from the Egyptian word "papyrus".

The first paper made by the Chinese was made of

hemp that had been soaked in water and beaten into a

pulp. Papermaking didn't reach Europe for another thou-

sand years.



All this has brought about changes that affect the book,for example ,the

conventional composition is now so expensive that only justifies very

large.spins, but there is a wide variety of cheaper printing met-

hods,such as photocopy and electronic duplication.

The evolution of printing from the simple method of buffer to the proc-

ces of printing press seems to be produced independently at different

times and in different parts of the world..

Gutenberg, Printing and Typography

Gutenberg, Printing and Typography

The printer is an industrtial method of

reproduction of texts and images on a

paper or similar material,which con-

sists of applying ink,usually oil on me-

tal spikes,called types,to be transfe-

rred to paper by pressure.

New media appeared in a time of chan-

ge and accelerated speed communica-

tions more and were a response to in-

creased demand for information and

entertainment.

However,the modern printing press

was not established until approximate-

ly the year 1400,by the hands of Johan-

nes Gutenberg.In Europe,many people

claimed to be part of this art,although

opinions suggest that it was the Ger-

man Johannes Gutenberg, who had the

initiative to join a team of prin-

ters,which supports him as the inventor

of the typography.

POURING HOT METAL.

A ladle was used to pour the molten

metal, a mixture of tin,lead, and anti-

mony into the mould to form a piece of

type.

TYPE MOULD

The matrix was placed in the bottom of

a mould like this.The mould was then

closed and the molten metal was pou-

red into a trough at the top. The sides

were opened to release the type.

HELD TIGHT.

When the type was complete it was

placed in a metal frame called a chase.

The type is locked in a place with pie-

ces of wood or metal to make a fra-

me.The frame is then placed in the

printing press,inked,and printed.

Gutenberg, Printing and Typography By Daniel Déniz, Rubén Polo & Patricia Sánchez



The Linotype is a machine invented by

Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886 which

mechanized the process of writing to

be printed.

The machine revolutionized typeset-

ting and with it especially newspaper

publishing. Before this invention, no

newspaper in the world had more than

eight pages.

composition than original hand compo-

sition in which operators place down

one pre-cast metal letter, punctuation

mark or space at a time.

The Linotype ma-

chine operator enters text on a 90-

character keyboard. The machine as-

sembles matrices, which are molds for

the letter forms, in a line. The assem-

bled line is then cast as a single piece,

called a slug, of type metal in a process

known as "hot metal" typesetting. The

matrices are then returned to the type

magazine from which they came. This

allows much faster typesetting and

Offset

the ideal procedure of the commercial

printer.

Offset lithography is one of the most

common ways of creating print. A few

of its common applications include:

newspapers, magazines and books..

Many modern offset presses use com-

puter to plate systems as opposed to

the older computer to film, which in-

creases their quality.

Offset Lithography a printed variant

was discovered around 1904 by Ira W.

Rubel, a printer of New Jersey (United

States).

Rubel discovered, accidentally, that

printing the image onto a surface of

rubber reproduced on paper much

better than that produced by the iron

directly. The reason for this improve-

ment is that the rubber is softer and fits

better than the iron.

Working with this idea , it could start

Linotype and Offset By Alberto Abreu, Claudia Santamaría & Eva Basterrechea


Fist Printing Machines

When we speak of printing, we refer to

the monotype system. It is said that

Gutenberg invented the printing press

using movable type, as does the mono-

type.

The linotype and monotype machines

that have been created to facilitate the

composition of the type in the typo-

graphic workshops.. Although the mo-

notype was more innovative than the

linotype, the latter was the one that

lasted for a long time, but today has

been replaced by the computer, which

does the job in much less time.

The Linotype is a machine invented by

Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886 which

mechanized the process of writing to

be printed.

The machine revolutionized typeset-

ting and with it especially newspaper

publishing. Before this invention, no

newspaper in the world had more than

eight pages.



printing on paper of inferior quality

and cheaper than was traditionally

used. Then, offset lithography became

History

Some inventors have contributed to this

machine.

Henry Mills obtai-

ned a patent for a

machine that, from

the patent, appears

to have been similar

to a typewriter in

1714.

The first typewriter to be commercially success-

ful was invented in 1867 by C. Latham Sholes,

Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwau-

kee.

Typewriting in Popular Culture

Typewriting. History

complished with typewriters in the

western world. Typewriters, however,

remain in use in various areas of the

world.

Introduction.

History.

Typewriting in popular culture.

In music.

In film.

In television.

In videogames.

Introduction

A typewriter is a mechanical or electro-

mechanical device with keys that,

when pressed, causes ink to be printed

on a medium, usually paper.

From their invention before 1870

through much of the 20th century, ty-

pewriters were indispensable tools for

many professional writers and in busi-

ness offices.

Women started to work out of their

houses as typists.

By the end of the 1980s, word proces-

sors and personal computers had lar-

gely replaced the tasks previously ac-

using a typewriter to type her murder

mystery novels.

In music

Some compo-

sers incorpora-

ted typewriters

into their music.

They have used

the typewriter as

a percsusion

instrument

In Film

Some actors and actresses are shown

using manual typewriters

In TV

Typewriters have been used many

times. For example, in the popular

television show Murder, She Wrote,

Jessica Fletcher, played by Angela

Lansbury is seen in the opening cre-

dits and in a few scenes throughout

several episodes in different seasons

Typewriting. An Introduction By Laura Germán, Laura Martínez & Alicia Martín



Henry Mills Samuel W. Soule Carles Glidden Lathan Sholes

Dot Matrix Printer

A dot matrix printer or impact

matrix printer is a type of computer

printer with a print head that runs back

and forth, or in an up and down motion,

on the page and prints by impact,

striking an ink-soaked cloth ribbon

against the paper, much like the print

mechanism on a typewriter.

Each dot is produced by a tiny

metal rod, also called a "wire" or "pin",

which is driven forward by the power

of a tiny electromagnet or solenoid,

either directly or through small levers

(pawls). Facing the ribbon and the

paper there is a small guide plate

pierced with holes to serve as guides.

for the pins.

Injet Printer

An inkjet printer is a type of

computer printer that creates a digital

image by propelling variable-sized

droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet

printers are the most commonly used

type of printer and range from small

inexpensive consumer models to very

large profess ional machines.

�Features: the main characteristics of

an inkjet printer are speed, measured

in pages per minute (ppm), and the

maximum resolution, measured in dots

per inch (dpi). In both setting, the

higher the better.

Computers and Printers By Alicia Gargía, Alba García & Ana Heredia

Computers and Printers


A c o m p u t e r i s a

programmable machine that receives

input, stores and manipulates data, and

provides output in a useful format.�A

computer is a group of integrated

circuits and other related components

that can execute with accuracy, speed

and as indicated by the user or

automatically by another program, a

variety of sequences of instructions.

The computer, in addition to a

software, needs some specific data

(called Input) that must be supplied

and are required at execution time to

provide the end-product of data

processing (called „Output‟). Then, the

information can be used, reinterpreted,

copied, transferred or retransmitted to

other people, computers or electronic

components. It has some peripherals

and auxiliary devices such as: screen,

keyboard, mouse, scanner, speakers

and secondary storage. Originally,

they were the size of a large room,

consuming as much power as several

hundred modern personal computers.



Laser Printer

A laser printer is a common

type of computer printer that rapidly

produces high quality text and

graphics on plain paper, in black as

well as colours. The printing device

consists of a photoconductive drum

rotating device attached to a toner,

and a laser beam that is modulated and

projected through a mirror disk to the

photoconductor drum. The disc

rotation causes a sweep of the beam on

the generatrix of the drum. The areas

of the drum on the incident beam are

ionized and, when these areas pass

through the toner reservoir, they

attract the ionized powder in the toner.

Then, the drum contact the

paper, impregnating powder in the

corresponding areas. Finally, the ink is

fixed to the paper by double action of

heat and pressure. For monochrome

laser printing is used one toner. For

colour laser printing, are needed four

toner.

adding the vowels (e.g. keyboard

becomes kybrd).

SMS language or Textese ,also known

as txtese, chatspeak, txt, txtspk, txtk, txto,

txtk, texting language, txt lingo, or txt

talk, is a term for the abbreviations and

slang most commonly used due to the

necessary brevity of mobile phone text

messaging, in particular the widespread

SMS (Short Message Service)

communication protocol. SMS language

is also common on the Internet, including

in email and instant messaging. It can be

likened to a rebus, using pictures

and single letters or numbers to

represent whole words (e.g. "i <3

u" which uses the pictogram of a

heart for love, and the letter u re-

places you).

For words that have no common

abbreviation, users most commonly

remove the vowels from a word,

and the reader is required to inter-

pret a string of consonants by re-

Mobile Text Messages and e-mails

Mobile Text Messages and e-mails

A mobile phone is an electronic device

used for two-way radio telecommunication

over a cellular network of base stations

known as cell sites.

Mobile phones differ from cordless

telephones, which only offer telephone

service within limited range through a

single base station attached to a fixed land

line, for example within a home or an

office.

The history of mobile phones begins

with early efforts to develop mobile

telephony concepts using two-way radios

and continues through emergence of

modern mobile phones and associated

services

control information, including,

minimally, an originator's email ad-

dress and one or more recipient ad-

dresses. Usually descriptive informa-

tion is also added, such as a subject

header field and a message submission

date/time stamp.

Electronic mail, commonly called

email or e-mail, is a method of exchan-

ging digital messages from an author to

one or more recipients. Modern email

operates across the Internet or other

computer networks. Some early email

systems required that the author and

the recipient both be online at the sa-

me time, a la instant messaging.

Today's email systems are based on

a store-and-forward model. Email

servers accept, forward, deliver and

store messages. Neither the users nor

their computers are required to be

online simultaneously; they need con-

nect only briefly, typically to an email

server, for as long as it takes to send or

receive messages.

An email message consists of three

components, the message envelope,

the message header, and the message

body. The message header contains

Mobile Text Messages and e-mails By Sara Yurda, Alfredo Rguez & Sergio Santos



The students were divided into

two groups. One group studied the

History section and the other the

technologic section. Then they were

divided in groups of three and assigned

specific topics in order to make the

project.

Visit to the Natural History

Museum to take part in a workshop about

the first techniques of writing.

The students researched

information on the Internet in order to

prepare the specific topics.

Each group handed in the work

for revision by the teachers involved.

Each group made a power point

presentation of the chosen topic, which

was sent by email to the teachers for revision.

Each group explained his topic to the rest of the class using the power

point presentation.

How did we learn?

The Phoenicians contributed to our modern system of writing: the phonetic alphabet. It was invented by the

Phoenicians around 1200 BC. Phoenicia was an ancient civilization on the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria,

and northern Israel. It was a trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean Sea during the period from 1550 BC to

300 BC. They traded with people over great distances from the Middle East to Europe and Africa.

They invented a phonetic alphabet with twenty-two consonants, using symbols to represent these sounds. The

Phoenician script used 22 consonants, but no vowels. The reader was assumed to speak the language, so they would know

what sound to put between the consonants. This new method was simpler and easier and was soon used by many people.

The alphabet used by the Hebrews, Greeks, Italics, Iberians,

Germans, Indians and Arabs are based on the Phoenician alphabet. Later (circa

800 BC), the Greeks adopted this Phoenician alphabet and added vowels to it.

The Etruscans adopted and modified the Greek alphabet and passed it along to

Rome. The Romans made their own refinements to it, and this led to the

alphabet we use today.

This was the origin of our alphabet. The word itself comes from the

Greek letters alpha and beta.

Students of 2º A ( ESO) CLIL Group)

Andrea Cedrés (Assistant)

Ana Oñate (CLIL Coord)

Marisa Ucar ( Teacher of History)

Javier Pérez (Teacher of Science)



How did we evaluate?

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

1. Showing ability to find specific

information in texts

2. Showing comprehension of the different

peoples involved in…..

3. Showing comprehension of the social ….

4. Showing comprehension of texts about

history in oral or written form

The Phoenician Alphabet By Mrs Marisa Ucar,



Documents

History of Writing