Prevent students from using AI in their writing

We thought we had a plagiarism problem before, but AI has taken it to new heights, hasn’t it? It’s now a never-ending task to try to detect whether students have actually written something themselves. If you want to stop students from using AI in their writing, you can try to educate them of the downsides or institute strict bans. However, the best way to take AI out of student writing is by changing your approach to how you set up your assignments.

Students have been finding ways to not do their work forever. Pre-internet students were using Coles Notes and the like to help them analyze texts. Parents and tutors revised and edited their children’s work. Students copied homework in the cafeteria. Finding ways to not do school work is really nothing new.

But the internet made it much worse, and now AI has taken cheating to infinity and beyond, to quote Buzz Lightyear . It’s made it so difficult for teachers to know that students are doing authentic work. Far more problematic is that it’s made it easy for students to skip over the thinking process.

That, my friends, is not a great idea, and you can read more about why in this blog post and get some solutions here.

But my guess is that you know this. It’s why you’re here looking for a solution because AI is a real presence – dare I say danger  – in our classrooms. The good news? We don’t need punitive measures and plagiarism checkers, because the best way to prevent students from using AI is by:

• focusing on the process
• doing more in-class writing, and
• assigning fewer long assignments to allow time to do this.

Yes, your students will end up writing fewer essays, etc. but you will feel more confident that they did the heavy lifting themselves – and learned the skills you wanted them to learn. Ticking off a list of assignments and collecting a pile that are plagiarized doesn’t have the same effect.

Ok, so let’s break this down:

To prevent AI in student writing, do more in-class assignments:

There are many types of writing we ask our students to do, and at the end of the post, I will address more of them, but for now, I’m focusing on literary analysis – the type of essay that lends itself to the most plagiarism in my experience.

In order to ensure students aren’t doing AI analysis, we need to do more in-class writing. We can’t control what they do at home, and we don’t have the time and energy to run everything through an AI checker that may not be reliable anyway.  However, if students do the writing in class, by hand, there’s a far better chance it’s their own.

Now, earlier in my career I would have been advocating for the use of a computer to write an essay as it makes it so much easier to revise. But it makes it so much easier to access AI – and for the essay writing to just be a typing exercise, not a thinking one. I’d far rather have an original piece of writing that is less polished than one the student didn’t write at all.

That doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t give students time to work on the writing process. Read on to find out the steps I would follow and to get some samples and templates you can use.

In order to follow the process I present here, you need to do some upfront work to plan the steps your students need to complete in class on their way to the final assessment.

Begin by asking yourself some of these questions:

• What will students need to submit?
• How can I make connections to students’ lives?
• What steps are needed for success?
• Where can I build in time to work on each step during class?
• What will I assign as a building block toward the final essay?

Now, let’s look at how to put all of this together:

For authentic student writing, start at the end:

If you want to prevent students from using AI in their literary analysis essays, start at the end, with your final assessment. Knowing what students will be tasked with doing will allow you to build in the steps to get there, ones that will hopefully keep them off ChatGPT.

Ideally, students would be choosing their own topics, crafting their own theses. But right now, at this time, we are fighting the AI monster, and so it’s not an ideal time in the English classroom. Once you build your students’ skills and confidence, perhaps you can get to that point. Now, with the process I’m about to lay out, you are setting up a framework that will make it more likely they do their own work.

And that begins with you deciding on an essay topic (or several if you want to offer students choice). By crafting that final essay question before you begin, you can more easily plan the next steps of this process.

Make connections with essential questions:

Once you’ve chosen the topic you want students to write about, develop some essential questions that link the topic to students’ own lives. If you make these links, not only will you increase interest, but you will also be able to use them as part of your writing assignment if you choose.

For example, in the past, I may have assigned this as an essay topic for Macbeth:

Language is a powerful tool for manipulation. Discuss how Shakespeare explores the idea in the play.

Before we even began the play, I would ask students to reflect on the following:

• What are some examples of the ways the media/advertising tries to manipulate us?
• How is language used to manipulate us in other areas of our lives?
• Why do some people give into peer pressure while others are able to withstand it?
• What do we need to do to ensure we aren’t being manipulated? That what we hear/read is the truth?
• How can we use the power of language for good?

Students will reflect and discuss and reflect some more, gathering their own ideas about the topic in their notebooks. Then, at various points in the play, I’ll ask them to continue to make connections to these. ideas. For example, in Act 1, scene seven, Lady Macbeth plays on her husband’s weaknesses and fears to change his mind about the murder. I have students reflect on and discuss when this may have happened to them (not the murder part, of course!)

Later, I will ask them to use these personal connections in their assignments. This is an optional part of giving the in-class essay that follows, but one that adds another barrier to getting all the answers from AI. You will see how I do this in the sample paragraphs you will find in the template I share below.

Break down the steps of the process:

There are many reasons why students turn to AI or other forms of plagiarism, but one of the biggest is that they doubt their ability to do it well themselves. That’s why one of the best plagiarism preventions is to build their confidence by breaking down the process they need to follow for success.

That means that you can’t just assign a literary analysis essay at the end of a unit; you need to be working on it all along, inching your students toward that final assignment. And if you do this strategically, each step will add up to a focused final writing assignment.

So, after we have finished an act in Macbeth, we work on writing paragraphs that connect to the final essay topic. For example, in Act One, students will write about how Lady Macbeth uses language to manipulate her husband.  I ask students to both analyze the text and connect it to their own lives following this pattern:

• Topic sentence that is focused on the play

• A mix of textual evidence and commentary/analysis

• Connection to real life (optional)

See my example here

And, the first time we do this, I model the process I would follow to write such a paragraph. We also spend time learning how to select and embed quotations to support our points.

Prevent students from using AI in their writing with feedback that feeds forward:

After students pass in that first paragraph, they get detailed feedback from me, using an assessment checklist that is quick and easy for me to use. Then, they will be tasked with using the feedback to improve one or two things in that paragraph. They show me via a desk-side conference what they changed and why.

We repeat this process with more paragraphs after Acts 2-5. Students are reminded to refer to the feedback for the previous paragraphs when they write the subsequent ones.

Procedure for the in-class essay:

When it’s time to write the essay, I give students the thesis (or a choice) that I want them to use. Even if I offer a choice, each one is designed to work with the analytical paragraphs students have done already.

Students need to get organized before we start: they are allowed to use their text, the paragraphs they wrote already, and the assessment checklists/feedback. Their names must be at the top of each piece of paper. As we get started, I walk around to ensure they don’t have anything else on their desk (like an analysis they may have printed off the internet).

They know that this will be a two to three day process: day one is organizing and outlining, day two is drafting, and day three is revising and rewriting anything that needs improving.

At the end of the first day, I pass out folders or envelopes to each student. They put their name on it, and all of the materials they have been using – their past paragraphs, outline, draft, etc. go in it. I collect them at the end of class and return them the next day. When they come into class on day two or three, they can have their text book only  – and then the folder I return to them.

On the last day, they put their final draft on the top, followed by their other material. This goes back in the folder and they pass this in. I give them feedback using a rubric. It can end there, or I can add one more step: after they get the feedback on their essay, they can use it to type a more polished version that they can do at home. However, they will also pass this in with the original draft so it’s not a new piece of writing.

Preventing AI use in student writing takes time:

The process I outlined above takes more time. There’s no way around that. However, as I’ve stated above, I would much rather take this time than end up collecting and grading a bunch of work that was not written by the student themselves.

Students can still find ways to plagiarize with this process as well. But, using a step-by-step process like this will hopefully slow them down, and give them more confidence in their ability to do the writing and thinking themselves.

Click below to grab more details on this process, as well as a free planning template.

You can also read the following to find a process-based approach to other type of writing.

Persuasive Writing

Narrative Writing

Scaffolding the Process of Literary Analysis

I hope you have found some ways you can prevent students from using AI in their writing. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!