From Should We Really ABOLISH the Term Paper? A Response to the NY Times:
If you grumble in the faculty lounge or on Facebook or wherever you grumble, that the “students get worse and worse every year,” then you have to be introspective about what you are doing, what they are doing, and fix the situation.
Through a detailed recounting of purpose and practice, Davidson discusses how and why she argues for the use of blogs and other kinds of writing instead of or in addition to the term paper. The last clause there is important, though. She isn’t anti-term paper, but she is against formulaic writing, assigned and executed mechanistically, that proves frustrating and unhelpful to both the student and the teacher.
I highly recommend reading the whole piece (and the resources she references), but I pulled the quote above because I think it’s the underlying message, even if it’s mentioned almost as an aside: if you and your students are finding the writing they’re doing in your class “frustrating and unhelpful,” then you should take a closer look at what you’re assigning and why.
I taught English and creative writing at a public high school. I stay involved in education through my work with the Northern Virginia Writing Project. 
