Character Reference

West Bridgewater fourth-grader shines with "perfect letter forms"

The Brockton Enterprise, July 3, 2006

Fourth-grade Howard School teacher Sally Romano insists that even in a computer age, handwriting must not become a neglected art.

Apart from its role in academics, she said, handwriting reveals something of the character of the writer and carries an impact that no e-mail or printed text can match. Romano views it as a second language superimposed on the first.

So when Zaner-Bloser publishers announced its latest national handwriting competition, she had her pupils try their hand.

When all the ink had dried, the writing chosen to represent the class belonged to 10-year-old Lisa Marinelli, whose sample was entered in the state competition.

Romano was not surprised. She said she could see Lisa's personality in the manuscript.

"In everything she does, Lisa is so meticulous, so thorough, so eager to learn," Romano said.

Lisa's father, Michael V. Marinelli, 47, a controller at GNR Construction of Braintree, elaborated.

"It's a matter of pride with her. She never gets anything less than an A," he said. "She just fell in love with school."

When Lisa was 4 months old, Marinelli and his wife, Mary, traveled to mainland China to Adopt her. With them were 10 other American couples in an adoption program sponsored by Wide Horizons For Children of Waltham.

"She is a treasure to us," said Lisa's mother, Mary. "She is everything to us."

"I can't think of what life would be without her," said her father.

During her preschool years, her mother home-schooled Lisa in art. Today, Lisa loves visiting the arts and crafts store at the Westgate Mall and seeing her artwork in school exhibitions.

Romano points out details in Lisa's handwritten Preamble to the Constitution, "We the people of the United States..."

"See the perfect letter forms, the precise height," she says. "See the perfect slant and legibility and the cursive transitions."

Romano's fourth-graders also learn about different cultures and historic world migrations.

Once, she said, "Lisa drew the wall of China and said, 'This is where I'm from.'"

The 11 adoptive families get together regularly at cookouts and restaurants, where the girls talk school and softball and giggle, said Marinelli.

"We call them the 11 sisters of China," he said.

Last year, seven of the adoptive families revisited China to help the girls better understand their heritage.

Lisa visited Beijing, toured the Forbidden City and Summer Palace and, said Marinelli, climbed the steps of the Great Wall "like a trooper."

About the 11th day into the trip, Marinelli said, Lisa confided, "I want to go home to West Bridgewater."

While the Howard School's handwriting entry did not win the national prize, Romano was unfazed.

"We teach them that what is important is to set goals and try their best," she said. "Wait till next year."

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