English 100 at Ashland

A little background Years ago, the in-class handwritten exam was standard in almost every college course. Across Ashland University, we are returning to that sort of assignment, and many other colleges are doing the same, to assess what students can do without ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, or any other machine doing the writing. What do you know? That’s the question we are working on. Here is my advice for doing well on these tests. Before the test It’s always OK to ask beforehand what sort of test it will be. If you are asked to discuss course content (lectures, reading, and so forth), spend some time reviewing your notes. Bring your own pen and paper. Bring extras—pencil points break and pens run out of ink. If your instructor has special requirements (blue book, for example), be sure to bring the right stuff. A good night’s sleep will help a lot. You probably do not want to tank up on coffee. ...

Any time I tell someone I teach college English, I get the same question. Not “How do you get through reading all those papers?” Not “Are students less prepared than they used to be?” Not even “Freshmen are a fun bunch, aren’t they?” No, the question is always “What are you doing about Artificial Intelligence?” It’s a fair question, and it’s being asked on every college campus in the country. Before I get around to answering it, I want to deal with a couple of other questions. Why is A.I. so appealing? I don’t think most of my students sat down in April and said to themselves, “I think I’ll cheat my way through college.” The problem, though, is that many high schools have not done much with teaching students how to actually write things (your teachers may not have known either), and then you get to college and you’re in ...

First, a couple of sad truths Years ago, before you were in school, someone in the Ohio Department of Education (or some similar government office) decided that computers were THE thing of the future, so they stopped teaching elementary school children how to write. I see the result every time I teach a class. If I give a quiz, there is a general panic because several of my students showed up for a college class without paper or pen. Nobody is taking notes, so if I say something in a lecture, they have no way to remember it. If I write something on the board, several people will stand up and take pictures of it with their phones because they lack the equipment and skill to write it down. That’s sad. It’s like these students never got beyond the first or second grade. (I understand, by the way, that Ohio has realized how foolish it was to stop teaching handwriting, and they are putting it back into the school...