This paper presents an analysis of a hundred and one handwritten essays by master students in Informatics. The students reflected on their experiences of working with pen and paper for reading and writing as a mandatory assignment for the duration of a five-week intensive course. Taking an inductive approach, reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of meaning across the full dataset. The essays elicited insightful student reflections on learning, knowing, and being. One overarching theme, New connections, and four sub-theses were identified: Handwriting as note making, Being present for learning, Freedom to think, and Materiality of reading and writing. This study contributes to an improved understanding of the affordances of paper and laptops in the lecture room, based on a student-centred approach, and reflects on how student perspectives can be implemented during lectures.