At 8:05 a.m., you burst into your classroom, ready to start your in-class essay. Opening DigiExam, you enter a code as long as your phone number and brace yourself for the prompt. A clock counts down in the corner and reminds you that you do not have infinite time to experiment or think through your argument.
With the rise of generative AI cheating on take-home assignments, teachers have switched to in-class essays to ensure students use only their own brains. However, the clock in the corner actually hinders this aim, as stress blocks students from using their full potential. Relying solely on in-class essays costs students’ editing skills, thorough thinking, and their best work.
In-class writing certainly has benefits such as teaching students how to think on their feet and produce concise work under a time constraint. History Teacher Katharine Millet describes the rise of in-class essays as “an inevitable consequence of the prevalence of AI in our society.” Despite feeling “frustrated to have to resort to in-class essays,” she believes this change is essential to reduce AI-based cheating. Teachers are not wrong to use in-class writing, but the problem arises from relying on it alone.
Common methods that teachers use to foster original thinking instead can add stress and thus negatively affect the work produced. With an average class period of an hour—and in-class essays often make up only a portion of the day’s lesson plan—teachers provide students very little time to think. They experience significant stress, especially when in-class essays make up a major portion of their grade.
In a 2024 study in the Journal of Language and Education, where researchers analyzed the effect of time on writing quality, they found that “students produced better quality essays when given more time compared to shorter periods…Extended writing time allows students to plan, revise, and improve their essays, resulting in fewer...errors.” Not only did more time to reflect on work improve the writing, but time pressure can also “negatively impact students' strategies.” Participants given 30 minutes were more likely to write without planning…students given 60 minutes exhibited more deliberate writing behavior, including time for reflection and revision.”
In other words, repeatedly using only timed assignments might cause students to consistently produce lower-quality writing. The format meant to test quick thinking ironically ends up undermining it with stress that makes it harder to think clearly.
The format of in-class essays also rewards the wrong skills. Students do not exercise editing skills because they have only enough time to write. If students do not consistently have assignments that teach skills like revising a graded essay at home with unlimited time, they will not develop them. Since teachers grade essays on a rubric that values concise argumentation and structure, the assignments do not reward deep thinking, but rather the fastest and simplest ideas, because those ideas are all students can achieve with their limited time.
Therefore, students might focus on the safest argument to save their grade, and so these assignments wind up measuring how students handle pressure. Some students think through their writing slowly, a trait which leaves them at a disadvantage. Swift thinking is certainly a skill, but teachers can test it in other ways, such as discussions or oral exams.
Teachers can implement different mechanisms to preserve academic integrity. One option is an oral defense, where students answer questions about their methods and writing to confirm it is their own. Another method is simply to compare a student’s few in-class essays with their out-of-class essays, and if teachers see AI patterns or large disparities, they can do a deeper scan of typing and version history. These methods check comprehension without stressing students or requiring an overreliance on an in-class approach that disadvantages students.
I do not argue we should abolish in-class essays. Rather, relying on in-class essays as the sole form of graded assignments does not give students the skills they need to succeed in college or in the workplace. Teachers can test quick thinking in students in ways that do not stress them out, like Harkness discussions or oral defenses. Otherwise, if every graded essay is one written in class, students will not produce their best writing and will end up lacking the revision and deeper thinking skills the real world demands.