Document Type

Article

Abstract

When ChatGPT was released three years ago, its ability to mimic human writing unsettled me. I’m a professor of communication; what did it mean that my students now had access to a machine that could communicate for them? My initial unease led to a half-joke with my colleagues. Universities could survive this threat, I ventured, but only if we reverted back to 19th-century teaching methods like Socratic dialogue, oral defenses, and lengthy essay exams. This once-laughable scenario is now a serious consideration for many faculty, including me.

Like many professors, I’ve recently abandoned take-home essays in favor of blue-book exams. This turn toward low-tech, proctored assessments isn’t about ignoring AI: It’s about giving students the chance to develop as writers and thinkers without its interference. I expected student pushback, but none came. During finals, my students wrote by hand for three hours, in class. After several demoralizing semesters of encountering AI writing in student work, the authenticity and richness of these students’ hand-penned prose nearly moved me to tears.

Publication Date

8-6-2025

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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https://www.chronicle.com/article/bring-back-the-blue-book-exam

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