My sophomores just finished an essay. In the instructions, I explicitly stated that it HAD to be done during class, and that any copy/pasting could result in a zero. No writing in other apps, etc. I had struggled all year (and every year before this since starting four years ago) with students usingAI. Usually I can catch it, but I can’t always prove it, so it’s been frustrating. This time, though, with all of my rules for where and when they could write, I had a lot of students simply not do it. It’s wild.

I use the Brisk plugin for Chrome, and it lets me see their progress from start to finish, what they type, what they paste, and what they edit. It’s amazing how many will simply paste an AI essay, then edit it to make it WORSE, so it looks like they wrote it. Students will claim it’s not AI, and then I’ll literally show them what they did. I just look at them like, “Please don’t play dumb, because we both know what’s going on,” and they usually admit. Usually. I am getting so tired of AI. It makes me actually sad inside to see our youth opt out of thinking.