I hate the feeling of writer’s block. The blank page stares me in the face, mirroring the exact image in my mind. As I aimlessly type on my keyboard, a great, time-saving idea comes to my head.

The idea is not groundbreaking: take an essay from the past and adapt it to fit the new rubric. Although it is against school policy, I know people who have reworked their own essays to save time.

At Redwood, this is considered academic dishonesty. The parent/student handbook states that  “submission of work for one class that has already been accepted for credit in another class or school” is “unauthorized” and the punishment ranges from meeting with a teacher to suspension.

But why is reusing an essay considered academic dishonesty? I am not copying another student or taking the information off the Internet. I am just using an essay that I personally wrote for another class.

For example, in middle school I was taught to write essays in the five-paragraph format. Then, in freshman English, my class was assigned one in order to prove to the teacher that we knew how to do it.

But instead of saving a couple hours by submitting an essay from the year before, I had to write a whole new one. The old essay would have accomplished the same effect as the assigned one, that is, writing a five-paragraph essay, and saved time. The old essay would not have been on the same topic of what was assigned to us, which could be a problem––but not if the goal of the assignment is to demonstrate writing ability.

I understand teachers want to evaluate their students’ current writing and analysis  abilities, not their skills from a previous point in time. But if the essay were adapted,  it could demonstrate the student’s current ability while saving them time. Each of the previous unnecessary parts would be removed and replaced by fresh language and improved arguments.

In the worst-case scenario, the student wouldn’t adapt the essay. If that happened, it would mean that either the student didn’t understand the rubric or was simply too lazy to change their previous essay. To remedy this, teachers could require that all versions of the essay be submitted so that students who simply printed out an old essay would be discouraged.

If the goal of the assignment is not to demonstrate writing ability, but rather knowledge of a topic, then perhaps it would not be appropriate to adapt an old essay. Unless, the topic of the new and old essays are similar enough, because the student probably already wrote what they felt the strongest about. And if the best essay is produced when the student writes what they feel most compelled about, then why make a student write a new essay when the quality of the essay will go down?

Obviously students shouldn’t abuse the system by reusing the same essay when the assignment doesn’t call for it. And while practice makes perfect, there is no reason to completely redo an essay when the ultimate product will be the same.