still kind of think the way to attack LLM use in graded writing is to make students submit two drafts and explain their changes. has the advantage that if they’re using LLMs it teaches them how to use LLMs
there is no way to LLM-proof homework and also they’re probably going to be using LLMs for the rest of their lives and careers also. make them learn how to attack a draft.
this isn’t particularly scalable but in my undergrad we had weekly tutorial sessions where you, another student, and the prof would orally critique the papers you and the other student wrote that week. that would work too.
what you are trying to teach and what they need to learn, almost always, are critical reasoning skills.
those matter more not less in the LLM age.
so square up and teach em.
May 7, 2025 13:24this is what my mom does, basically (community college english; before that she taught freshman english at a small state school with lots of first-gen students). as one prof pointed out it's very labor intensive but it's a great skill to learn
even as an english major at an elite private uni i didn't get enough instruction on revision, really until i did my senior thesis. and i still basically write straight to a final draft, even when i wrote a book
This seems similar to the "phonics vs whole-language reading" debate, in that there's a tension between the mechanics of the process and the intended creation-and-communication-of-information result.
Like, if you can't form a coherent five-paragraph essay then it doesn't matter how good your ideas are, but there are a lot of people (and teachers) who think that once you can form a five-paragraph essay that's it, you're done, you've Learned To Write.
When I interview interns I ask them about their research process and it's a surprisingly good proxy for whether they'll be able to write a coherent memo. I can teach them where to look and what to look for, but I can't teach them to ask the right questions.
Full sticker price at my institution is $9k a year, though (and no one pays even that much). It's just not a model that can work at most schools.
