Back to Basics: The Revival of Bluebooks

Before this school year, all senior school English electives concluded with a final paper. As English teacher Amelia Audette said, “Students wrote final papers during exam review week.” 

However, this year, the assessment format changed. Seniors took the Shakespeare exam, only juniors took the elective exam, and most essays are handwritten in class, sometimes in more than one Bluebook. Previously, the proportion of in-class versus out-of-class work depended largely on teachers’ preferences, but this year, “at least 50% needs to be in class writing, and I can promise you that number will be higher next year,” said English teacher and department chair Joe Addison. 

The reason behind this shift? A surge in AI use and cheating. From a faculty perspective, Addison sees the situation as part of a broader increase in academic dishonesty. “Cheating exploded in the spring of last year," he said. "It became totally untenable to have students write take home papers at the end of the term, because the amount of cheating we would find as a department would be extremely high.” AI can generate an essay in a fraction of the time by having a user input only a few sentences. Audette stated that “we are eliminating the temptation, so students can write their best in a safer space.”

The students' perspective is similar. Molly Calderone ’27 acknowledged that “because of AI, it is so much easier to cheat on essays, so teachers want to make sure situations are airtight.” Mikoto Araki-Siegenfeld ’26 stated that “AI prompted the change because I feel teachers don't trust the kids these days, for good reason,” referring to AI’s accessibility. 

Upperclassmen have varying opinions about the change in format. Araki-Siegenfeld, who took the Shakespeare exam, stated, “I liked the exam because whenever I have an essay, I overthink and spend too long every time.” On the other hand, Calderone said that “I never do my best work on English exams because it's so much stress for something that you usually do with more time.” The uncertainty of English exams also frustrates some students. “Knowing that I have an even longer and more complex exam than last year that I have to study for is unsettling,” said Allison Solorzano ’27. Notably, ninth- and 10th-grade English exams were 90 minutes long, while the elective exam was 120 minutes long. 

Some students feel that the skills and material emphasized in electives are difficult to test in a traditional exam format. “The English electives don’t really work for an exam,” stated Julius Cafiso ’27. Jamie Ganter ’27, who is taking Dark Romanticism, stated, “It should be based on how well we know the dark conventions of dark romanticism, not how well we've memorized the text that we've read.” Valentia Cassella ’27 said, “If we're writing an essay about every aspect of the book, why do we have to take an exam that's about the same thing?” 

Other students are frustrated that they are being punished for others’ actions. Chaima Arouna ’27 said, “It's really unfair that we have to suffer the consequences of other people's actions. I understand that AI is an issue, but I don't think that all the juniors should have to take an exam just because a bunch of people used AI in their essays.” Since the Term II final exam is also one-sixth of students’ term grade, “it just adds on another exam that really doesn't need to be there to drop my grade,” Arouna added. 

It seems that the ideal world in which students produce their own ideas and grapple with them through revision is gone — at least for now. Addison said, “I think every single English teacher dreams of a world that was only four years ago where students could sit, wrestle, think, write, edit, and go back to shift, add dialog, and talk as you write a paper and bring together multiple texts.” Realistically, the quality of in-class essays completed in 55 minutes can never compare to hours of writing and revision. Audette admitted that “it limits creative writing and projects, which takes time that's hard to do in class.” 

English and other subjects continue to grapple with the changing reality of AI, as do schools and colleges across the country. Although it is uncertain whether final exams and in-class writing will remain in the future, for now, they appear to be here to stay.