When term papers get graded this school year, many students who turn in sloppy work won't be seeing red.
An increasingly popular grading theory insists red ink is stressful and demoralizes students, while purple, the preferred color, has a more calming effect.
"I never use red to grade papers because it stands out like, 'Oh, here's what you did wrong.' " said Melanie Irvine, a third-grade teacher at Pacific Rim Elementary in Carlsbad. "Purple is a more approachable color."
Irvine said that in elementary schools, it's unnecessary to point out every error. Instead, a teacher should find a more delicate way to help a child learn.
The writing-instrument industry is a lucrative one, netting more than $4.5 billion in U.S. consumer spending a year, and the nation's major suppliers of pens have discovered many teachers like Irvine.
Paper Mate stepped up production of purple pens by 10 percent this year in response to focus groups that alerted the company to the many teachers switching to purple.
"This is a kinder, more gentler education system," Paper Mate spokesman Michael Finn said. "And the connotation of red is that it is not as constructive as purple."
Two years ago, almost no purple pens were stocked on the shelves of Staples stores. After teachers began demanding the color, however, the national office-supply company obliged. Staples went from adding purple pens to multipacks last year to now manufacturing packages of solely purple pens.
"Teachers are a great customer for us, and we need to supply them what they need," said Staples spokeswoman Sharyn Frankel. "If they come to us and say, 'We need purple,' we get them purple." Although some educators are sticking to red for grading, the trend seems to be toward a less-judgmental shade.
"We try to be as gentle as we can and not slice children's thoughts to pieces with a red pen," said Laurie Francis, principal of Del Mar Hills Academy. "The red mark is associated with 'This is wrong,' and as you're trying to guide students in the revision process, it doesn't mean this is wrong. It's just here's what you can do better."
Teachers traditionally wielded a red pen because it stood out on paper, and they had to use a different color than black or blue, the shade typically used by students.
The idea that red induces stress, especially in younger children, has been around for years, said Lawrence Jones, a psychology teacher and former graphic-design instructor at The Art Institute of California San Diego.
"You associate red with blood, stop and danger," he said. "Teachers, realizing the immense problems they face with kids in education, find avoiding red helps them avoid one more negative in a child's life."
Daniel Ochoa, a color theory teacher at the institute, said purple is associated with spirituality, royalty and elegance. Green is also soothing, he said, because it is the color of the forest and symbolic of refreshment.
Lisa Parker, principal of Chula Vista Hills Elementary, said she has no policy on pen color, but definitely has a preference.
"We never say to teachers, 'No red,' but to get a paper back with red marks all over it is not necessarily the best way to get kids to be comfortable with their writing," she said.
Yet tradition is hard to break.
Gloria Ciriza, a fifth-grade teacher at Pomerado Elementary in Poway, corrected papers in red when she began teaching 11 years ago because it was familiar to her. Now, she doesn't necessarily favor purple, but she prefers a softer color.
"If it's in red, they want to put it in their desks real quickly so nobody else can see," she said. "If it's in another color, they're a little more comfortable."
Not all educators, however, are surrendering their apple-red pens.
Some argue that American culture is one of extremes. They say the same students who receive color-sensitive grades leave school and play gory video games. And some attribute the dwindling number of red pens in the classroom to self-esteem sensitivity run amok. Skeptics discount fears of the shade and wonder whether all the attention to the color of a grade has any substantive effect.
Sheldon Brown, a visual arts professor at the University of California San Diego and director of the school's Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, said the negative reaction to grading in red is culturally embedded – a reaction more ingrained in the teachers than the students.
"Teachers may start out using purple, a color that they seem to think has less negative connotations, but in time, after kids have gone through 12 years of purple check marks, they're going to think purple is an awful color," Brown said.
Many educators say the choice of pen color is only the tip of making the grading experience a positive one for kids. Some argue that the science of grading is so much more than a check mark on a piece of paper.
Lorri Santamaria, who instructs aspiring teachers at California State University San Marcos, said callous grading can cause kids to loathe school, and she cautions her students against correcting tests in red.
Stephen Ahle, the principal at Pacific Rim Elementary, said grading is much more sophisticated than it used to be. Every aspect of grading – from the language used to the teacher's tone and the color of ink used to make corrections – leaves a psychological imprint on students, he said. "I tell teachers to use more neutral colors – blues and greens, and lavender because it's a calming color," he said. "And, of course, kids also like purple because it's the color of Barney."
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