Process-Based Assessment and Writing History

Process-based assessment shifts part of the grade from the finished product to evidence of how it was made: a proposal, notes, an outline, one or more drafts, peer feedback, a revision and a short reflection. It was good teaching practice long before chatbots, because feedback on drafts improves writing, but it now doubles as the most useful authorship evidence a teacher has. Writing history is the digital trail. In Google Docs, File > Version history > See version history shows time-stamped versions and who made each edit. The Draftback extension for Chrome can replay a document's revisions for anyone with edit access, showing the text appearing over time. Microsoft Word keeps version history for files saved to OneDrive or SharePoint. Authentic history usually looks messy: many sessions spread over days, sentences typed, deleted and retyped, paragraphs moved, the thesis changing. A concerning pattern is a polished 1,200 words arriving in one paste with almost no later edits. Even then, there are innocent explanations. Students draft in phone notes, write offline in another app, or paste from their own earlier document. History is evidence to discuss, not a verdict. Two misconceptions cut in opposite directions. A single large paste does not prove misuse, and a clean, gradual history does not prove honesty, since someone could retype AI text by hand. Process evidence is strongest when combined with other checkpoints: in-class writing samples, a conversation about choices, and consistency across drafts. Detector scores compare poorly. They give a probability without showing their reasoning, they produce false positives, and a 2023 Stanford study found popular detectors often flagged essays by non-native English writers as AI-generated. Version history, by contrast, is something teacher and student can look at together and discuss.