First In-Class Essay
The Details
The Rhetorical Analysis Essay was a success! Students spent an entire class period writing their essays in blue books after using the prior classes to brainstorm, outline, and draft thesis statements for their essays. All students finished on time and they, generally, had positive reflections on the in-class essay. One student noted that they had never written an essay by hand, and other expressed that they were pleased to see actual blue books for the essay.
In class today, I asked for feedback on the in-class essay—with a clear statement that I am open to revising the structure of the next essay if the in-class essay isn’t working. This informal conversation indicated that the essay itself went well; students appreciated the prewriting and brainstorming we did in class in advance and some mentioned that they enjoyed putting literal pen to literal paper. Others expressed that they preferred typing essays because writing online makes it easier to change words, rephrase sentences, and generally revise.
I’ve assessed a few essays so far and I’m impressed with what I’ve read. While I won’t share details (obviously, FERPA), I’ll say that I suspect the ungrading assessment method eases some tension and stress about in-class writing. Overall, my students are—for lack of a better word—chill. It would be ok if they weren’t (I’m not chill), and I’m surprised at how easy-going they are. The in-class writing hasn’t seemed to phase them.
AI, Research, & Romance Conversation
Today, we shifted gears toward our Synthesis Essay. We discussed research questions and finding sources through the library, Gemini (our university provides us all with Gemini accounts), and Consensus, an AI tool that only draws from scholarly sources. Students appreciated learning about a variety of ways to identify scholarly sources, even if they won’t be using those tools to identify sources for this class.
We kept pulling at the AI thread to discuss AI and dating. The conversation was lively; there were a lot of hands raised! Based on what students said (and almost every student raised their hand to say something), they appreciate AI tools for tasks like finding scholarly sources, but outsourcing romance to AI is crossing a line. In other words, the majority of these students feel it is inappropriate to use AI to alter images, draft apology texts, and respond to flirty DMs.
While that isn’t quite surprising, what I was happy to hear is the reason for this stance: Many students think it is important for individuals to learn how to engage in interpersonal relationships and manage those relationships independently—and without the help of AI. I, too, worry that AI is lowering users’ ability to emotionally regulate, and I’m glad to hear that concern echoed by another generation.
I’ll create an anonymous form of some kind to better gauge how students are feeling about in-class writing. In the meantime, I look forward to our ongoing conversations about rhetoric and romance!