The clicking of keystrokes fades into scratching pencils and gliding pens as WCHS English classes respond to artificial intelligence. In sophomore English classes especially, assignments that would have been typed at home are increasingly being completed in class on paper. While handwritten assignments have never completely left, assignments have been majority online over the past couple years.
“During COVID-19, it was all online and we saw a huge increase in plagiarism and cheating, but there was little we could do,” WCHS English teacher Alison Deli said. “That sprung us into thinking about how to minimize people sharing documents with each other, and then came the rise of ChatGPT and AI generally. When I first started teaching here, we had kids type essays all the time, and I’m sure they were cheating then too.”
Returning to handwritten assignments removes the convenience of typing. As opposed to the button-presses that fly past as quick as a thought, each and every letter must be carefully recreated. Instead of the ease of editing an idea after it has been committed to the screen, writing by hand provides and imposes on students the chance to think more while writing.
“In class, I feel pressured not to look something up at the moment, while when I’m at home, I have that freedom,” WCHS sophomore Nathan Soh said. “Yes, it’s easier to cheat on your work when you do it at home, but I believe you get more out of it when you have extra time. Sometimes when the assignments are longer than usual, you have a sense of urgency, which sometimes defeats the purpose of taking your time and being creative.”
Students feel a sense of urgency and stress during writing assignments, even after the careful planning teachers use to ensure that all the necessary material is covered. There are several periods every quarter where students arrive to class, write their essay and then leave without the luxury of any extra time that they may have had for at-home writing assignments. The class time spent writing is not wasted as the students only have an allotted amount of time to finish their essay. WCHS English teachers point out that writing out ideas by hand does have several benefits apart from the ability to catch cheating.
“One [benefit] is that you retain knowledge better when you write it,” Deli said. “The idea of handwriting, in taking a thought and putting it down on paper, is very good at processing data and at processing information.”
Writing by hand can make a work feel more real than abstract buttons on a keyboard. While it may seem tedious, that could give students more time to think. Writing while being watched at school can be uncomfortable, however, it is becoming normal again. Before the advancements that let every student use a computer, assignments were handwritten by default.
“Honestly, [writing essays in class] was overwhelming at first because I was so used to typing my assignments online, but I quickly adapted,” Soh said. “It is not so bad anymore.”
