All of my classes involve written papers and sometimes class presentations as a major graded component. High stakes assignments like these always involve “scaffolding”: the use of smaller, low stakes assignments designed to prepare students for success in the more challenging assignments. Examples of scaffolding include the Case Analysis Project for PHIL 2203ID and the Argument Papers assigned in PHIL 3211. 

An increasingly important part of such assignments are efforts to mitigate plagiarism of various forms, including plagiarizing from generative artificial intelligence websites such as ChatGPT. The Argument Paper assignment for Philosophy of Law (see explanation below) represents my most recent effort to update existing assignments to formats that disincentivize these kinds of cheating. After testing this method I hope to roll out similar changes to all my major assignments in other courses in the future. 

Interdisciplinary Health Care Ethics (PHIL 2203ID) Case Analysis Project

Perhaps the best example of this is the case project in my interdisciplinary Health Care Ethics class. I will describe the scaffolding involved in this project chronologically below, in order to give a glimpse at how students grow and develop via strategically designed assignments throughout the semester. The ultimate objectives of this sequence are 1) for each student to produce a written report that applies concepts from lectures, readings, personal research, and reflection to a particular case; and 2) for students to bring the resulting expertise from this project into a group setting, where they are responsible for trying form a consensus about the case and for delivering a group presentation.

1. Homework

Initially, students have two short homework assignments (on a normative and an empirical article, respectively) in which they have to read articles assigned for class and then produce a short “annotated bibliography” entry. These practice “entries” give them practice in putting together a correctly formatted bibliographic reference and practice in reading carefully to discover an author’s thesis and supporting arguments.

2. Annotated Bibliography

Next students are assigned to a group of approximately 4 students, and the group is assigned a particular case (see a representative case). Students pick a role (either editor, philosopher, physician, or nurse). They play this role throughout the remainder of the case project. The first step in doing the case project requires each student (individually) to conduct research relevant to their assigned case and role in the group and create an annotated bibliography summarizing this research. A student assigned to the physician role in a case about assisted suicide would need to find 5 articles relevant to the medical aspects of assisted suicide that could help the student resolve the ethical dilemma in the assigned case. Each student then develops an annotated bibliography identifying the thesis and supporting arguments (or conclusions and supporting evidence, in the case of scientific articles) for each of the 5 articles they chose.

3. Writing Workshop

Up until this point, students have practiced reading essays or articles by others and have learned to identify a philosophical thesis and supporting arguments (as well as conclusions and evidence, for scientific/empirical articles). A short homework assignment later in the semester asks them (again, individually) to begin formulating their own thesis and arguments for their particular case. Students summarize the main issue in their case, identify a draft thesis, and two major arguments they plan to use to support their thesis. They trade papers with a fellow student (not familiar with their group’s case) and spend the class critiquing each other’s work, using criteria similar to those I will eventually use when grading their papers.

4. Individual Written Reports

About three quarters of the way through the semester students must hand in their individual written report. The written report is the culmination of the student’s individual learning throughout the semester applied to their assigned case, from the perspective of their chosen role. Students are expected to give a normative recommendation in response to the main ethical issue in the case. This recommendation is the thesis of their paper and the rest of the paper constitutes the arguments for the thesis. In this sense, every paper is an ethics/philosophy paper, even if the student’s role is physician, nurse, etc. However, students are expected only to incorporate research that is within the professional ambit of their chosen role (so physicians are responsible for incorporating the medical science research from their annotated bibliography; philosophers incorporate philosophical research from their annotated bibliography; etc).

5. Group Presentations

Up until this point, students have been working on their own to develop their thinking about their assigned case. Now they convene with the rest of their group to discuss the case and to prepare a group presentation. This assignment is intended to replicate what actually happens in a hospital ethics committee. The objectives are twofold. First, they have to work with other students who have significantly different disciplinary knowledge in order to develop a more comprehensive undersatnding of the case. Second, they have to work productively with others who may have significantly different perspectives, values, or intuitions about the case. The group is required to provide a single recommendation, although they can note in their presentation if some group members disagreed with their final conclusion, as well as the content of their objections. The rubric for the presentation assesses both group performance as well as individual student contributions.

Philosophy of Law (PHIL 3211) Argument Papers

In Philosophy of Law I use scaffolding to help students write a critical argument paper on a single text. Scaffolding begins with in-class analysis and outline of a short piece of text, followed by very brief (Four-sentence) papers designed to help students understand the format of a philosophy paper. Ultimately, students do analytical outlines of four texts. They do short Four Sentence Papers on the first two, and longer (approximately 4 page) Argument Papers on the latter two. 

1. In-class Analytical Outlines

First (after a little coaching on analytical outlines) students are told that they will write an Analytical Outline on a section of text (usually about 3 pages) taken from that day’s assigned reading (but only revealed to them in class). They receive a photocopy of the short piece of text and a blue book for making their analytical outline. They have 45 minutes to complete the outline. This assignment rewards students who have read and understood the longer reading for the day (which is necessary for most students if they are to comprehend the text selection and write an outline in just 45 minutes) and ensures that students have read the assigned short section carefully and critically for themselves. The design of the assignment also guarantees that students cannot use generative AI to complete this assignment and significantly reduces the temptation to use it later in their papers (since they have already read and outlined the relevant text). 

2. Four Sentence Papers

Each of the first two Analytical Outlines prepared by students forms the basis for a subsequent Four Sentence Paper critically responding to the outlined text. The details of the assignment are explained on the assignment page; essentially, students use the first sentence to explain the author’s position and supporting argument; the second to explain their response and supporting reason; the third to consider a potential objection to their position; and the fourth to provide a response to this hypothetical objection. This assignment is very short but focuses student attention on the most important parts of writing a critical essay: identifying what the critical target says and why, and identifying as concisely as possible the student’s response and supporting argument. Because the assignment requires using one of the claims already identified by the student and further requires generating sentences that respond to one another in a logical sequence, the assignment is difficult to complete using generative AI. Moreover, the incentive to do this is somewhat reduced, since students are already familiar with the material from the in-class assignment. 

3. Argument Papers

Later in the semester students write longer papers in critical response to assigned readings. First they write analytical outlines of texts in class, as before. Then they use the same four elements of the Four Sentence Paper to compose a longer Argument Paper (about 4 pages or 800 words). This more extended form of reasoning and responding to reading is a major goal of philosophy education, and I feel the variety of earlier assignments  work really well in preparing students for success on this assignment. Although students could use generative AI to complete this assignment, the same protections exist for these longer papers as do for the Four Sentence Papers.