The demise of the Written Assignments ?

Anyone who has either read the new Language Ab Initio or Language B guide, or who has already attended a Subject-Specific Seminar on the new courses, will have learned that the Written Assignment is on its way out of the courses as a discreet assessment.  A variety of reasons have been given for the decision to remove it from the course.  These reasons include issues of Academic Honesty, the apparent inconsistency in how the Written Assignment is introduced and supervised in schools, and the discrepancy between the marks in the Written Assignment and the other written assessments.  Whatever the reason(s) may be, and it is probably a combination of the above, we'd like to suggest that the essence of the Written Assignment still has a place in the Group 2 courses.  There are a number of features that definitely lend themselves to in-class or after-class research, study and follow-up.  The description of a cultural aspect in one of the target language cultures, the comparison between this target language culture and another culture of the students' choice, the research skills involved, the drafting and writing skills necessary to complete the task, the opportunity for students to pursue their personal interests or curiosity are, amongst other, sufficient reason to consider setting Written Assignment-type tasks in our classes.  Maybe, by removing the 'achievement' pressure from the task, the students will revel in the process of developing a task of a cultural nature.  We will continue to 'teach' such tasks and we will include them in our formative assessments.  After all, international mindedness requires the exploration of the target language culture(s), and few activities will do it better than the soon-to-be-defunct Written Assignment.  We'll call it something else but we'll keep all of its great features ! What are your thoughts on this type of task ?  Add your comments in the space below ...