A guide to using Gesso day-to-day. The manual is split into three parts by role. Tutors should read both the teacher and student sections, since their work borrows from each.
Gesso is a course management platform built as a lightweight alternative to Canvas LMS. It focuses on the work that matters in writing courses — submitting drafts, returning marked work, sharing materials, and posting announcements — without behavioral tracking or third-party data sharing.
This manual is split into three parts: For Teachers, For Students, and For Tutors. Tutors should read both the teacher and student sections, since their role borrows from each.
Gesso uses an invitation-based whitelist. You cannot self-register from a generic signup page; your email address must first be added to a course roster by a teacher or admin. Once you are on a roster, you can register with that email and set a password.
Visit your institution's Gesso URL and sign in with the email and password you registered with. If you forget your password, use the password reset link on the sign-in screen.
If you belong to more than one course — a student in two classes, a teacher running multiple sections, a tutor assigned across courses — you can switch between them from your account without logging out.
As a teacher, you have full control over your course: roster, syllabus, announcements, files, and assignments. The sections below walk through each responsibility.
When you create a course, the first things to configure are the syllabus, the roster, and your assignments. There is no required order, but most teachers start with the syllabus so students see something meaningful when they first log in.
Add people to the course by email address. There are three role levels:
Adding an email to the roster also adds it to the registration whitelist, so the person can create an account if they don't already have one. Removing someone from the roster removes their access to the course.
The syllabus editor accepts Markdown. Write in plain text with
standard Markdown formatting — headings with #,
lists with -, links with
[text](url), emphasis with * or
** — and Gesso renders it as a clean read-only
page for students. Update it whenever you need to; students
always see the latest version.
Announcements are dated posts that appear on the course page. Use them for class cancellations, schedule changes, reading reminders, or anything else students should see when they log in. Students view announcements in an accordion sorted by date, with the newest at the top. Tutors can also post announcements.
Upload course materials as ZIP archives. Inside the ZIP, you can organize files however you like — by week, by unit, by reading — and Gesso will preserve that structure for students and tutors to browse. Use this for readings, handouts, prompt sheets, sample essays, or anything else you'd hand out in class.
Assignments in Gesso are built around multi-stage drafts. A single assignment can have multiple stages — for example, proposal, first draft, revised draft, final — each with its own due date.
When you create an assignment:
Students will see the assignment with each stage and its deadline. As deadlines pass, Gesso marks submissions as late or overdue automatically — you don't have to track this yourself.
Once students start submitting, you can view all submissions in one place. For each stage, you can see who has submitted, when, and whether they were on time.
To return marked work:
The student gets the returned file in their account and can download it whenever they need to.
When the course is over, you can delete it. This removes all submissions, files, and records associated with the course. This is by design — Gesso treats students' work as belonging to them, not to the platform — so make sure you've kept any local copies you need before deleting.
Course deletion cannot be undone. There is no shadow copy or recycle bin. Export anything you want to keep first.
As a student, your job in Gesso is to submit drafts on time, download what your teacher posts, and keep up with announcements. The sections below cover everything you'll do.
You can't sign up for Gesso on your own. Your teacher adds your email to the course roster, and once they do, you can register with that email and choose a password. If you've tried to register and gotten an error, your email probably hasn't been added yet — message your teacher.
The syllabus is the official document for the course — policies, schedule, grading, expectations. Your teacher writes it in Markdown, and you see a clean rendered version. Check it when you have a question about course structure before you ask.
Announcements appear in an accordion sorted by date, newest first. Click one to expand it. Get in the habit of checking announcements when you log in, especially before class — that's where teachers post cancellations, room changes, and reminders.
Your teacher uploads readings and handouts as files you can download. Browse the files area and grab what you need. If something looks missing, check announcements or message your teacher.
Most assignments in Gesso have multiple stages — for example, a proposal, a first draft, and a final draft, each with its own due date. To submit:
You can usually replace your submission until the deadline passes, so if you find a typo right after uploading, you can fix it. After the deadline, your submission is locked in and marked late or overdue if it came in past the due date.
lastname-draft1.docx is much friendlier to
your teacher than
Document (3) FINAL final.docx.
When your teacher returns a marked draft, it shows up in your account under the assignment. Download it, read the comments, and use them on the next stage. The whole point of the multi-stage workflow is that feedback on one stage feeds into the next.
Gesso doesn't track your behavior, sell your data, or hand it to third parties. When your course ends and your teacher deletes it, your submissions and records go with it. If you want to keep your work, save local copies before the course ends.
Tutors sit between teachers and students. The section below covers what you can and can't do; for everything else, read the teacher and student parts above.
Can View and download student submissions.
Can Post announcements.
Cannot Create assignments, edit the syllabus, or manage the roster — those stay with the teacher.
If you need to give feedback on student work, follow your teacher's workflow for getting marked files back to students. Usually you'll mark and return them through the teacher, or the teacher will grant you return access on a per-assignment basis.
For questions about your specific course — deadlines, expectations, grading — ask your teacher.
For technical issues with Gesso itself, contact your institution's Gesso administrator. The project source is at github.com/stockphrase/gesso.