It can be frustrating and exhausting to read so many essays that just feel wrong. We try running things through detectors, but various detectors often contradict each other, or they tell us writing IS human when we KNOW it isn’t. When a student who couldn’t place a comma correctly to save his or her life last week turns in a 2-pager with zero errors, you KNOW you aren’t imagining the AI use. It’s happening.
There’s good news, though. We can do something about this, and it doesn’t take much at all! All you need is a little help designing assignments, routines, and practices that encourage authentic work so that students actually learn and grow in your classroom.
AI can turn students into sneaky, lazy liars. Let’s steer them away from those paths!
#1: The Nuclear Option (Students Will Say They Hate This…)
Go back to paper. Yes, really.
Everyone I know who has gotten a handle on the AI problem says he or she has gone back to handwritten, timed, in-class writing with unseen prompts.
(Pro tip: Don’t let them see your assignments or prompts in advance or when they have a phone/computer on them. They will take a photo of the assignment or prompt, run everything through Chat GPT at home, memorize what it says, and regurgitate when they come to class!)
Read more on switching to in-class writing here!
The basics: backpacks and phones are placed at the front of the room. Students are allowed pencils, erasers, and 40-70 minutes to produce a 4-5 paragraph essay on a prompt they’ve never seen before.
But they will whine! They will say they cannot write 2 pages in one period! Don’t listen! They absolutely CAN achieve this and are only trying to manipulate you. Don’t let them reinforce their own learned helplessness!
If you’ve taught ACT writing or AP Lit/Lang, you have an idea of what these timed writes look like. We can also adapt for a regular or mixed-ability class by providing more scaffolding (let them use graphic organizers or provide them with helpful handouts/packets during writing) or asking for a shorter effort from some students. Your teaching focus should be on how to craft solid body paragraphs with textual evidence, clear claims, and logical organization.
Why is this a great strategy? Nobody can prep for a perfect response at home or make a cheat-sheet outline to hide in his or her lap. There’s no feeding the prompt to ChatGPT the night before or prepping with a friend on the bus. Each student’s work will be his or her own!
Do students complain? Yes. There WILL be whining. But do their writing skills improve? YES. And we can stand up to some whining and complaining if we know it’s what’s best for the students, right?
Go Beyond: Think this is too difficult or harsh for your kids? Consider still doing it, but then allowing students to revise their timed piece later for extra credit. I would advise doing this while incorporating a one-on-one conference* where they need to explain their process (what they changed and why). You could also have them highlight the bits they changed and put a short reflection (sticky-note-size) at the end discussing their choices/revision process. This cuts down on their ability to just run it through an AI for “revision,” as they must KNOW what was revised and why… *The conference can just be 5-10 minutes with you before/after school or even during work time in class. It doesn’t need to be a “big deal” or a time suck for you!
Resources to Help You Implement This Strategy:
- Literary Analysis Essay Handout/Guide (General)
- In-Class Essays Handout/Guide (Lit Analysis, Argumentative, Persuasive, or Expository)
- Building CER Body Paragraphs (Handout)
- Writing CER Body Paragraphs (Full Lesson)
- Free Essay Basics Guide (Handout)
#2: Tweaking Assignment Design
Current AI models are impressive in some ways, but they also have many (predictable) weaknesses. We need to exploit those weaknesses when we make our assignments.
Ways to do this…
A) Require students to synthesize from multiple texts. Ask your writers to compare how two or more authors use specific techniques to develop a similar theme, or how three unique poems approach the same subject but through varied forms or structural choices. With synthesis prompts, AI will usually produce pretty-sounding but bland responses with zero specifics. This kind of work will receive very low marks, even if your AI detector doesn’t “catch” it, because the content (claims, evidence, and analysis) will be SO lacking. Simply filling out your rubric will lead to a D or an F grade because their work will be so vague and lifeless!!
Want to be sure of this? These rubrics to ensure vague AI answers with few specific details will earn low marks! 1) W.1 and W.2 Essay Rubrics & 2) Literary Argument / Lit Crit Essay Rubrics.
B) Demand citations (including page numbers with every quote). AI won’t provide page numbers with quotes, and if students ask it to do so, it will completely hallucinate the numbers and make up obviously wrong in-text/parenthetical citations. This simple requirement forces students to actually read the text to find quotes, and you’ll know right away when their papers say something happened on page 21 when you know it happened somewhere more like page 120-150! Plus, it’s easy to prove they cheated when they have citations that look like this: (144a, p. 7, Winslow et al.), and you were looking for this: (21 Twain).
Your students don’t know how to cite? No problem! Use these tools to make citations easy! Citation is a huge key to success that they shouldn’t be able to bypass in their high school education!
Citation and Evidence Tip: My students have to use a printed copy of the text and complete an evidence search before they begin writing a paper. We keep track of our quotes on pre-planning pages: planning organizers (printables) + outline directions. I also often allow “work days” where they can ask me/their peers for help finding a scene or a quote. This cuts down on their frustration and makes it so even struggling learners don’t quit or give up.
C) Require handwritten outlines and first drafts before you accept any typed version. The physicality matters here because it slows student thinking down in ways that produce better ideas. Plus, students are way more likely to try out their own ideas and move forward with them if you start with handwritten planning. If you START with a computer screen in front of them, MOST kids will be tempted to search the web or use AI to try to find “better” or more “correct” ideas (or to save time and energy). Set them up for success by requiring some REAL work up front, and they’ll stick with that real work out of pride and confidence as you move forward!
PRO Tip: With struggling learners, learners who lack confidence, and slow starters, check in with them after they’ve done a tiny bit, and heap them with praise. This will encourage them that they are on the right track and reduce the chances they will either try to cheat or simply turn nothing in.
Tools for handwritten planning: planning organizers (printables) + outline directions
D) Try more personal writing. I have gone back to using more “journal” type questions (this was hugely popular in the 80s, 90s, and early 00s) within or as the sole type of question on more of my writing assignments.
Use questions like “Connect this theme to a moment in your own life.” “What makes this big idea relatable to everyone?” or “Do you agree with what So-and-so said when ___ happened? Argue for your opinion using a personal example.” or “What do you think about the character’s decision to… Was he wrong? Right? Somewhere in between?”
Journal-style personal/opinion questions are FAR more likely to lead to student writing that AI cannot fake convincingly. You’ll be able to tell when students are turning in bland, voiceless, robotic answers without specific details or any hint of their own personalities or interests, and it’s easier to talk to them about the importance of sharing their own thoughts, voice, and feelings and how writing can help them do that, as this feels real and significant to them.
Need examples? I have a few here…
2) Tuesdays with Morrie Journals
3) Creative Writing Journal Prompts for High School
E) Consider requiring reading notes (like DEJs, annotations, or discussion notes) for completion grades as you work your way through a text. From there, you can require timed, handwritten paragraph, essay, or 1-pager responses based on that preparation. Students can use their notes to help them write a timed essay or plan out an essay they’ll eventually type. This way, you are giving them a crutch and reducing their performance anxiety, but you’re also ensuring they’re doing authentic thinking and writing.
Pro tip: Use colored paper or a brightly colored stamp so you can easily see that only approved notes/materials are on student desks during writing time.
#3: The Oral Defense
While students work on their essays in class, take the time to call them to your desk one by one. For each student, you’ll only ask 2-3 quick questions. For example, “Why did you choose this thesis?” “What evidence do you think is weak in your paper right now?” “What’s part of the paper you are still trying to figure out?” “If you had to revise one sentence, which one would it be?”
This is meant to be a quick, 2-3 minute conversation… very casual. It may take 2-3 days to chat with every kid, but that’s okay if they are doing process writing! You’ve surely built in at least that many planning/drafting/typing days anyway, so just add this little extra instead of walking around the room or whatever you normally do.
The key here is that this chat will be uncomfortable for students who didn’t do the thinking for their paper themselves. That’s the point. Those who engaged with the work will be happy to share their ideas and happy to get your input or help with things they are wondering about. Many will light up to be able to discuss their work. Those who outsourced the thinking to SparkNotes or AI will fumble immediately.
#4: Want to Stay Digital?
If you need kids to work digitally for your own organization, due to school rules, or for another reason, you can at least make the writing process visible. Consider using the following tools to help curb cheating…
- Brisk Teaching + Google Docs lets you replay every keystroke. Brisk Teaching is a popular Chrome extension (with a free tier and premium features) that integrates directly into Google Docs. Its “Inspect Writing” or “Replay” feature pulls from Google Docs’ version history to generate a video-style playback of the entire document creation process. Look for keystrokes that appear gradually/slowly (normal human typing & editing) vs. large blocks of text appearing suddenly or super-fast typing with very little backspacing/editing/deletions. Check, as well, how long the student spent in the document (total active time). If a complete, well-written essay materializes with almost no edits, big “pastes,” and/or a very short total writing time (like 5-10 minutes), that is strong evidence of AI generation or plagiarism. Brisk also includes an AI detection helper in some versions, but the replay is often more reliable than AI detectors (which can have false positives/negatives).
- Revision History (a dedicated Chrome extension): provides a visual timeline + video replay that can highlight pastes, deletions, and session times.
- Draftback (another extension): replays revisions step-by-step, often used specifically to spot AI or plagiarism by showing unnatural “instant” large insertions (“pastes”).
- Google Forms quiz mode: Great for shorter writing responses or in-class essays/quizzes. You can also use Google Forms for a paper/essay if you want to make it so students can only write/type while in your classroom. Simply enable Locked Mode in Forms (under settings for Chromebooks/domains); this locks the student into full-screen mode & disables new tabs, other apps, extensions, and navigation during the writing period. Exiting triggers a teacher notification.
- Stamped or colored paper for meat-world notes that students can reference while writing
If a polished essay appears in seconds without any editing, or a full essay is typed in 6 minutes with minimal backspacing/deletions/changes, that’s a HUGE red flag that you can act upon!
Another thing to look for is whether they used multiple writing sessions or only 1-2 short sessions. Most students will write in more sessions and spend more than 5-10 minutes typing.
The Bottom Line
We can’t uninvent AI, but we absolutely can design classrooms where human thinking is the only way to earn passing grades. When students leave your class able to construct an argument under time pressure, synthesize complex texts, and defend their ideas verbally, they’ve learned skills that will support them in becoming productive and valuable members of this society and help them obtain and keep their employment, as they can do things AI cannot.
Will some students still try to cheat? Sure. But when the consequence is more certain to come (failing grades, referrals, having to face you…), most will step up fast—especially the academically motivated ones who care about their futures. Plus, they will ALL be less likely to try to cheat when they feel confident that THEY can do well and that you are giving them points for THEIR ideas and voice, not what the computer can do!
Connect with Me!
What’s working in your classroom? Drop a comment below!
Find more ideas about teaching in the age of AI here!
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Related Posts You Might Love:
- Combatting AI Cheating and Plagiarism: Strategies for Teachers (HUGE BLOG POST)!
- Using outlines
- Writing and essays (blog posts)
- Using graphic organizers for pre-writing and planning
- Teaching CER paragraphs (improved arguments and body paragraphs)
- Writing lessons and activities
About the Author: Carly Lamp has taught English 11/English III (American Lit) for 13 years & AP Literature for 10 years. She creates thorough, thoughtful, and rigorous materials, units, and resources for high school English teachers through both her blog and her TPT store (both named English with Mrs. Lamp). She LOVES teaching writing and helping new teachers and homeschool parents teach with confidence!
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