Syzito: reasoning together in academic writing
Process-aware academic writing platform where students, teachers, and AI reason through the writing together, not just at milestones and the final draft. Currently shipping as the Writey Thing prototype at writeything.benjaminloschen.com.
The name
Syzito comes from the Greek verb syzētō: syn (together) + zēteō (to seek, inquire). In classical usage it means "to examine together, discuss, investigate, reason together," not just casually talk. That's the product thesis: not producing a finished essay, but seeing and supporting the joint process of inquiry between student, teacher, and AI.
The problem it solves
•Students hit blank-page pressure and can't see their own revision process
•Teachers only see endpoints (the draft, the rubric, the grade) and miss where thinking actually happens (and where AI participation actually happens)
•Traditional feedback disconnects from observable writing behavior, so interventions are guesses
What's unique
○Process visibility over product focus: reason together through the entire writing process, not just at milestones and the final draft
○Transparent AI participation: the system clearly shows where AI contributes to the shared inquiry, not as a black box
○Evidence-linked interventions: every insight points back to visible writing behavior
○Replayable history: teachers can review the evolution of student thinking chronologically, including typed-vs-pasted and AI-use signals
Product surface (prototype)
Student side:
•Guided drafting with in-flow AI support
•Revision replay showing idea evolution
•Per-session reflection prompts
•Assignment dashboard, student report view
Teacher side:
•Triage dashboard with revision density, typed-vs-pasted ratio, AI-use indicators
•Assignment setup flow with rubric-driven grading + Canvas integration
•Session overview + session review with timeline markers
•Evidence-linked summaries for intervention notes
•Course assignments list, grading review/send modal
Tech stack
•Next.js 16 (App Router) + React 19 + TypeScript + Tailwind v4
•Radix UI + shadcn/ui for primitives; Tiptap 3 for the writing editor (with highlight, placeholder, underline extensions)
•React Hook Form + Zod for forms and validation
•Recharts for triage dashboards
•Driver.js for guided tours of the student/teacher flows
•Vercel Analytics for usage
•Built as a v0 prototype, then taken into a full Next.js app with the design system extracted into a coherent component library
What I'd take to v1
The prototype validates the interaction model (process timeline, evidence-linked review, AI transparency) across both student and teacher flows. A production v1 would add: a real event-sourced data model (the Event Model Spec and Data Model Spec are written), a privacy / governance posture for student data (FERPA + AB-2273 considerations), Canvas/LMS integrations beyond the rubric stub, and an authorship-likelihood analysis surface (drafted in the feature docs).