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He wanted 28 of them.
Pamela Rogow describes the order received at the typewriter shop at 6819 Greene St. At WPM Typewriter Shop & Garden — W.P.M. stands for words-per-minute — for nearly a decade, it has sold, rented and repaired typewriters for customers who still find a place for the machines in a digital world.
Some work on computers all day and don’t want to use one at home. Others say they think and write better on a typewriter. Rogow said poets are among those who prefer them.
“There are many ways in which typewriters foster creativity, attention span and careful expression,” she said.
The caller was Kevin Pajak, an English teacher at Crowley Collegiate Academy in Fort Worth. His students can earn college credits and an associate degree while completing high school.
Pajak does not like to fly, so he and a friend and drove from Texas to Rogow’s shop. He spent a little more than $5,000 of his own money on the typewriters.
Now in his fourth year of teaching at the school, Pajak said he’s confident that using typewriters will help his students write without relying on laptops, smartphones or AI.
Rogow said she believes typewriters can change how people approach a draft.
“When you typewrite, for example, you make a deal with yourself: How many drafts am I willing to do? You want to do the fewest number of drafts that is necessary — that might be three drafts or even nine drafts. So now, each time you write a word, a thought, a letter, you are doing your best to limit the amount to complete the work,” she said.
“Typewriting habituates you to do your best, which is the opposite of what goes on with electronic devices – you don’t have to remember anything because the machine will. With electronic devices, you can get back to your writing later, and rely on delete and cut and paste.”
Rogow said electronic devices can encourage black-and-white thinking, which she calls “dichotomous thinking.”
“That does not foster deep thought, it doesn’t foster reflective thinking. It’s short-term thoughts, little teeny thoughts,” she said.
She said she believes typewriters give writers more time to sit with an idea.
“When we use typewriters, we can hold onto thoughts. We held onto thoughts longer when we used typewriters.”
Pajak described his first three years of teaching as “a learning curve, all the little tidbits of things that I had to do to stabilize the teaching. I’m finally done with that, now I can focus on refinement of my methodology,” which could include a typewriter. “As a teacher, you’re never done learning,” he said.
Pajak began looking for a way to address students’ use of AI on writing assignments.
“It’s their addiction to AI, so I have been addressing the AI problem the last two years, with in-class essay writing,” he said.
But handwriting longer responses during a 90-minute class posed another challenge, Pajak said.
“Because public schools have decided to stop teaching cursive, they’re maybe able to do a page, maybe a page and a half” during a 90-minute class, just to answer two questions,” he said. “And that’s not enough. I thought typewriters” could help.
Pajak said he plans to have students use the typewriters for tests and papers written in class. About 70% of a student’s grade is based on in-class work. Three six-page papers written outside the class, account for 15%, he said, because he said students may use AI to write them.
Teaching English was a change of course for Pajak. He studied engineering in college and worked in the field for three years, but found it “too easy and boring.” He later worked in research and development chemistry labs, but found that work too easy as well.
“I grew up doing science. My mom worked in science departments at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History,” he said.
“I asked myself, what’s hard? English is hard – it was hard, hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it still is not boring, and if classes get boring, [then] I change how we’re reading, how we’re thinking,” he said.
So how are his students dealing with typewriters?
“When the students first started using the typewriters, I thought of activating prior knowledge. So, I had them type up their thinking about the previous night’s homework. They did not like this. So, instead, I thought about the previous spring semester where they wrote stories in the genre of their choosing. I said, ‘Hey, what about crafting stories instead of typing up stuff related to class work.’ They loved the idea. So, now, for practice, we take 20 to 30 minutes of class time at the end of class to write stories. This only happens if we finish the day’s classwork,” he said. “This works better because they don’t see typing as a chore but instead as fun!” he said.
Pajak offers 20 types of categories for the students to write about, such as nonfiction, horror, cyberpunk, romance and other genres.
“As a result of their desire (to write), they are more focused during class time. I think this is the case because they want to get to writing on stories. I mention that it is not about filling the page with words but about practicing fingering. As they write, I walk around the room checking their fingering. I tell them that it will seem odd but that the fingering will become both natural and habit as long as they constantly think about what they are doing. All fingers return to home. ‘Asdf’ for the left hand and ‘Jkl’ for the right hand. I think a few more practice sessions and they will have it,” he said.
