{"id":24066,"date":"2025-09-10T09:36:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/?p=24066"},"modified":"2025-09-10T09:36:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T23:36:45","slug":"the-futures-of-open-student-longform-writing-at-the-university-of-sydney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/the-futures-of-open-student-longform-writing-at-the-university-of-sydney\/","title":{"rendered":"The Futures of Open Student Longform Writing at the University of Sydney"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2022, just as ChatGPT became widely available, Stephen March\u00e9 declared in a much-quoted article that \u201cThe College Essay is Dead<\/a>\u201d[1]<\/a> .<\/p>\n

March\u00e9\u2019s clickbait title concealed a deeper call to re-evaluate the humanities and social sciences in a tech-centred future. And he also predicted that we would be slow \u2013 perhaps even fatally late \u2013 to the task:<\/p>\n

Going by my experience as a former Shakespeare professor, I figure it will take 10 years for academia to face this new reality: two years for the students to figure out the tech, three more years for the professors to recognize that students are using the tech, and then five years for university administrators to decide what, if anything, to do about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

March\u00e9, 2022<\/em><\/p>\n

But March\u00e9\u2019s timeline has not proven to be accurate. Within the institutional contexts that I find myself (as a current<\/em> Shakespeare scholar at The University of Sydney) we have responded far more quickly.<\/p>\n

For me, the advent of large language models has prompted me to think more closely than I had before about how and why I ask students to write. Over the last year, initially funded by a VC Strategic Education Grant, I have led a project involving colleagues from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), and also worked closely with the Schools of Business and Law.<\/p>\n

In workshops with teachers and with students, across multiple teaching days and group discussions, we have explored what values we collectively associate with student writing and how these might be nurtured by emerging practices of teaching and assessment.<\/p>\n

Our focus has been on the \u201copen assessment\u201d side of USYD\u2019s distinction<\/a> between assured and open assessments. Specifically, we have been thinking about the possible futures of the open \u201cwriting assignment\u201d. A renewed affection for in-person exams has been one response from some unit coordinators. But turning to the invigilated exam risks missing opportunities to develop innovative open assessments where students are supported to learn over time, and that don\u2019t turn good teachers into \u201cbad cops\u201d. Open assessments allow us to help students develop \u2013 as well as test \u2013 their knowledge, skills, and critical thinking<\/p>\n

Two widely-shared ideas emerged from our conversations. Seemingly basic, they remain important places to start:<\/p>\n