For 30 minutes each day, Mikayla Blalock’s fourth grade students at Samuel E. Hubbard Elementary School in Monroe County focus on what some consider a lost art in the digital age: cursive writing.

Sherisse Kenerson stood in the front of her classroom Thursday afternoon at Holmes Middle School in Lincolnia, Virginia, and explained how to write the letters “M” and “N” in cursive. Then, she had ...