While I am relatively new to the teaching profession (3+ years experience) I find myself questioning more and more the practice of having students write literary essays in-class. Why are we forcing students to do this, especially when we know it leads to lower quality papers?
I am a high school English teacher and I spend a great deal of time teaching formal writing; especially how to write a proper literary essay. I also privately tutor high school students, often supporting them in similar English courses to the ones I teach and I am struck every time a student informs me that they are writing an in-class essay on the novel/play they just finished studying.
From my perspective, an in-class essay evaluates two things. 1. How well a student can write under pressure in an uncomfortable learning environment. 2. How well a student can memorise points and research they completed outside of the classroom for their in-class essay. That is it.
I honestly believe as teachers, and school boards, we implemented in-class essays to prevent plagiarism, yet with services such as Turnitin being used, there is no longer a benefit of the in-class essay. Besides, every senior level English course I teach has an essay question on the final exam. Therefore, if I want to assess how well a student can write under pressure and based on memorization, I get an opportunity anyway.
Plagiarism will likely occur in essays. It is a common understanding that at least one student will attempt to cheat, and hope that you will not catch it. To deter this from happening, I show my students Turnitin, and how it find everything on the internet, even provides the URLs to where the information was retrieved. I have found that by showing students that we have the technology to detect plagiarism, it is less likely to occur. Turnitin even detects if the same essay has been submitted to another teacher in another school.
The other part that prevents students from plagiarising is a strict school policy. In my school board, a plagiarised assignment is automatically assessed a failing grade (30%) and the student is not automatically allowed a re-write opportunity. Re-write are assessed on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, there is no reason not to allow students to write essays at home.
I have asked other teachers why they use in-class essays, and another common response is that they want students to learn proper peer editing.
Alright, I agree that there is a benefit to learning proper peer editing skills, but this can still be employed when a student is allowed to work on their paper at home. Besides, once a student leaves your class and moves on to post-secondary or employment, there is rarely a moment in real life that a student will be forced to work without adequate resources (word processing, the internet, and a magnitude of other resources that are not available in in-class essays).
In my opinion, if you want to adequately prepare a student for college or university, they need to learn proper time management skills, and how to write an essay on their own time. This is not accomplished with in-class essays.
Finally, the level of writing is always better in essays written at home. This is because the strong students will use peer editing at home to improve their essays. As an English teacher, I hate reading poorly written work, it is a waste of my time, especially when correcting spelling and grammar errors that would not be present in a word-proccessed essay. That is why when I receive a well-written paper, it is a joy to read, and easier to assess. That is why I want the practice of in-class essays to end!
What are your thoughts?
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