Blue books still causing white knuckles

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Posted on 10-27-2008

klg14

Hawthorne, CA

In digital era, blue books still causing white knuckles - The Boston Globe In digital era, blue books still causing white knuckles By Peter Schworm, Globe Staff October 24, 2008 FRAMINGHAM - The midterm was tough: two thorny essay questions on Greek philosophers and rhetoric. But at the end of the 50-minute exam, Julie Anderer held no ill will toward Plato or Socrates or her demanding professor. The soft-spoken junior at Framingham State College reserved her wrath for the blue book, the cramped, college-ruled notebook notorious for bending students' minds into pretzels and their weary writing hands into hooks. "I hate them," she said after the exam, somewhat apologetically. "I really do." No matter that it's the digital age; somehow the widely loathed blue book survives. The scourge of college students for generations, the slender eight-page booklets remain the medium of choice for writing exams on college campuses. And, as always, the flimsy pamphlet, its spine no wider than the staples that bind it, inspires dread and desperation. "The blue book still has this aura to it," said Anderer's professor, Audrey Kali. "It brings out their nerves. You can tell how much stress they're under by how hard they press down on the pages." Outdated as they seem in an electronic era, blue books chug along with little challenge to their supremacy. While new software allows tests to be taken on computers, blocking Internet access to prevent cheating, most professors still hew to the tried-and-true print format. So with rare exceptions, college students take notes on computers and write papers and complete homework assignments electronically, often eschewing hard copies entirely. But when midterms arrive in late October, especially in liberal arts classes, they leave their laptops behind, take pen in hand, and try to craft thoughtful answers in a single unedited take. All with the clock ticking, as their parents before them. "You pass out blue books, students pass out from anxiety," William Fowler, a history professor at Northeastern University, said as he prepared to grade 120 blue books for an exam given Wednesday. "It is the metaphor for failure and success." Deprived of cut-and-paste capability and their trusty backspace button, students often feel intellectually adrift, forced to craft sentences in their heads before committing them to paper. And physically, for students who largely abandoned script in grade school, penning essays is no picnic. Tack on the lack of spellcheck, and blue books often become an unsightly muddle of chicken scratch and scratch-outs. All of which makes a professor's job that much more daunting. "Oh, it's horrible," Kali said earlier this week. "It's very hard to read. And they usually complain halfway through - 'Oh, my hand hurts.' " Kali then passed out the blue books - two per student. They sighed, and their shoulders sagged. But when she urged them to write on just one side of the page, they perked up. The paper is thin, she explained. "The ink leaks through," she said. "We're going to have to ruin a few trees here." She paused, as if wondering whether a plea for clarity was worth her breath, before giving it a tepid try. "And of course," she said with a wry chuckle, "please write legibly." Most did, but it came at a cost. Throughout the exam, students stretched and shook out their writing hands, sometimes massaging them with their thumbs after prolonged bursts. "My hand was cramping up," Natalie Hasenkamp, a senior who was the first in the class to hand in her exam, said afterward. "The more I write, the more scribbly it gets." Yet Hasenkamp was not entirely down on blue books. A journal writer, she appreciates the visceral process of putting pen to paper, of seeing ideas take concrete form on the page. It's more immediate, she said, than tapping on a keyboard. But Doug Winneg, president of Cambridge-based Software Secure, said colleges have little fondness for the traditional format for its own sake. They are worried about cheating, he said, and the company's program, called "Securexam," takes care of that. "It literally locks down the computer," he said. "It eliminates the blue book. It allows students to write well-organized, legible test answers." Universities using the software include Drexel, Yeshiva, and Seton Hall, he said. But blue book sales continue to grow, if marginally, said Jim McDermott, general manager of Bemiss-Jason, a Wisconsin paper producer and one of many companies that make blue books. When he takes clients through the plant, he makes sure to visit the blue book section, for old times' sake. "They bring back a lot of bad memories," he said. "You would think technology would take more of the business, but we keep churning them out." Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com. © Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

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