Three sources. 75 minutes. Six sheets of wide-ruled loose-leaf paper. The clock’s second hand mocks menacingly from the wall, your excessively highlighted sources run dry of interpretation, and you begin to contradict your thesis well into your second body paragraph. You have a choice. Do you let your eraser run free, risking running out of time, or do you just turn it in and hope for the best?
In the dozens of in-class writing assessments I’ve completed (including four last week alone), I’ve never left the room with the feeling that my rushed writing is a fair representation of who I am as a writer, learner, or thinker.
The shift toward in-class writing has been coming to Andover for a while. In many ways, it’s our fault: overcommitting ourselves and then resorting to the efficiency of AI when our time runs out in fear of missing seemingly all-important deadlines. Last week’s News Section piece titled “Artificial Intelligence Concerns Prompt Surge in In-Class Writing Assessments” stressed the faculty’s focus on preventing student work from containing writing from large language models. A faculty member was quoted as saying that one of the aims of in-class writing is “getting good, authentic student work” free of “the kind of muddle that artificial intelligence websites like ChatGPT and others present.” However, reflecting on stories from my peers and my own experiences with in-class writing, I’ve found that, while it may prevent AI usage, going ‘all in’ on in-class writing limits every aspect of the writing process, curtailing both our learning and pride in our writing. We should not content ourselves with leaving the best work students have to offer on the table in search of what is “good, authentic student work.”
What is great writing anyway? Great writing happens when writers grapple with conflict, nuance, and complexity in their writing. Great writing happens when writers, halfway through their draft, have the leeway to disagree with themselves and adjust their argument. Great writing happens when writers give their work the time and attention it deserves. Writers use their time to handle context, contrast, and complications while presenting their unique perspectives. With great writing, writers can change both others’ minds and their own minds as well.
In the 50 Writing Center appointments I’ve made, some of my best writing has come from the sessions when I embraced the iterative writing process. Coming in, talking through the arguments I was making, and embracing the revision of my ideas helped me focus on creating writing that’s intellectually compelling. Many times, I ended my sessions with the excitement of a reinvigorated thesis that finally matched my newfound thoughts.
While the faculty member asserted that in-class writing “allows students to grapple with problems or with their own thoughts and ideas and represent them,” in my experience, in-class writing falls short of these aspirations. Instead, it curtails the very aspects of the writing process most conducive to the authenticity and honesty that the administration is perhaps trying to promote. Since in-class writing time is constrained by nature, sources and prompts are oftentimes constrained too, for fear of giving students the ‘information paralysis’ of too much to write or think about. This has a run-off effect on student creativity: students are afraid of making sophisticated arguments that may be difficult to back up with the given sources or fully flesh out in the time given. More often than not, students resort to ‘writing for the rubric,’ resulting in canned responses and recycled class discussion talking points, a safety net for students who are categorically disincentivized to take creative risks.
This time-dependent relation between thinking and writing is further shown in MahardikaI. G. N. A. W., & UtamiI. L. P. (2024), a study of university students published in the Journal of Language and Education. Researchers found a significant negative correlation between time constraints and the content and organization of student writing. Additionally, they found that students with time constraints were less likely to plan or outline their work before writing. Not only are students producing lower-quality writing, but they’re also compelled to use subpar methods that ignore widely taught organizational strategies for crafting analytical arguments. Underutilization of outlines can lead to more ‘writer’s block’, as the helpful structure of the once-emphasized writing process is discarded in favor of getting words down as quickly as possible. When invited to a 50 or 75-minute scribble frenzy, thinking takes the backseat to putting words on the page.
When thinking is removed from writing, learning is removed from writing. The shift toward the assessment of our nascent thoughts has not supplanted the learning opportunities provided by engaging in longer, more deliberately thought-out works. By denying students the time to develop their ideas, the adoption of widespread in-class writing degrades our writing and shortchanges our learning.
