As teachers prepare to return to school, many wonder how to incorporate AI into their curriculum. For teachers of writing, the opposite might be true: how to encourage original thinking by students who might be tempted to use AI to do their assignments. For those teachers, here are eleven suggestions:
At the beginning of the school year, ask students to handwrite in class a paragraph on what they studied in ELA last year, what they liked, what they didn’t, and why. Hold onto that writing. If you suspect a student is using AI to write, compare the writing style of the early document to the later one. If they are not similar, ask the student to redo the assignment.
Require that students go through all the steps of writing, including writing an organizer, writing a main idea sentence, writing a first draft, and revising. Grade each of these steps in the writing process, not just the finished product. Once you have approved the organizer, require students to continue organizing their writing the way they originally planned it.
Require all but the final draft to be done in class in handwriting on notebook paper. Provide the paper, marked a particular way for each class section you teach to discourage first period students from sharing with third period students. If possible, require different essay topics from different class sections. Collect work done in class at the end of class, and check to be sure each student has submitted his or her work.
Require that specific information of your choice—information that AI is not likely to have in its huge data base—be included in the student writing. That information could be from a student’s personal experience, such as comparing a novel’s character to a teacher in the school or writing a new beginning to Huck Finn as if the student is Huck.
Provide citations which students must use in their writing.
Don’t assign tasks easily done by AI such as summaries. Assign tasks that require critical thinking such as analyzing, synthesizing and evaluating.
Require students to reflect in writing about the writing assignment: what they liked about it and what they found hard. This can be done at any stage of a writing assignment. The information might suggest a mini-lesson to help students overcome a writing problem.
If students are writing about a book, quiz them on details in the book. Make them prove they have read the book before they write about it.
As you read student work, notice vocabulary that seems too advanced for a particular student. Ask the student what that word means. Also, notice if that same word is used in more than one student’s writing. That could be a sign of AI involvement.
Assign more short assignments and fewer long assignments so students spend more time writing.
Remind students that you will use Turnitin, GPTzero, and Copyleaks if you suspect a student used AI in an assignment.
English Writing Teacher 