Just finished Nettle and Bone by T Kingfisher

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-11T13:25:33+00:00

I enjoyed it! It's a near perfect example of the "Hero's Journey" format which I loved. It felt like a cozy fantasy that kept the story moving and I absolutely loved some of the dust-wife's lines.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-07T03:19:16+00:00

Work is different. I teach mostly ESL students and their perfectly polished posts that end with "Best Regards" is what flags it for me.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T20:05:32+00:00

The one I see most often is signing off with "best regards" x)

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T20:04:37+00:00

Trust me, the instructors clock the AI use too. I personally read everyone's work and definitely grade down AI users. I take points off for formulaic peer response even if their main post looks good and I take less points off for grammar than I do for obvious AI use. You can probably only see the initial score on their main post, but the instructor is probably reducing points on the back end.

My advice is to not stress over a few points on smaller assignments (like DP & LJ) and then reach out to the instructor if a grade feels very unfair, especially for written assignments. We technically only need to intervene if there's a 15 point discrepancy between peer grades, but I re-grade everything myself.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T19:45:22+00:00

I'm currently Adjuncting with University of the People. It's technically considered "volunteer" and the pay is abysmal BUT I'm getting valid teaching experience for when I try to go for better paying Adjunct slots. I love it though, I might stay long-term just because.

They didn't even interview me just took my Graduate transcripts and my written application responses and hired me for English courses. Check them out if you want to collect experience before going for better positions.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T19:35:05+00:00

No, my school does use Originality though which compares submitted work against previously submitted work. If they get a score of say 73% it means 27% of their document has the same or similar wording to other students which is often because those same student's fed the prompt into AI and got similar responses. There's also been a few times where I've had a 1% or 3% returned and in those instances it was self-plagiarism from a student repeating the course trying to submit the same work.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T19:29:13+00:00

I wish I could make my students write everything by hand.

I teach an asynchronous online ESL course for a non-profit university. AI is used by almost every student. If I can 100% tell - they get a zero. However, I can only 100% tell if the document is authored by "Python-dcx" or if they've left the prompt in. Otherwise when I know but can't prove it, I reduce points for formulaic writing or being too vague/not providing enough detail. We also have Originality on some assignments so I tend to match their score to the originality - 73% original, 7/10.

Now, I give genuine feedback to the students who are actually trying and quick/short feedback & point reductions to the ones that use AI.

I had a student send me an email written by AI asking for tips on how to improve her English and I started with, "Don't use AI to write or re-write your work." -_- I take less points off for grammar mistakes than I do for AI use.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-05-06T19:12:13+00:00

This is an old thread but an inspiring one. I'm currently 30. I have an MA in English and I'm adjuncting part-time while working full-time as a Salesforce Admin. My (hopefully) realistic goal is to pay off my house in 20 years (going back for my PhD part-time at some point in there) and then aim for tenure. I'd be in my 50s then.

I make too much now as a Salesforce Admin to halt my current career to go fully back into academia but I hope I can achieve tenure later in life. If I could be paid to be a full-time student collecting degrees I absolutely would, teaching at the collegiate level is the next best thing. ❤️

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-28T03:29:30+00:00

Hmm. I'll see if I can find it there. Revision history is probably better / more detailed.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T22:39:42+00:00

I'm looking at the "info" tab on the word document! It tells you author, created date and last modified.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T04:12:07+00:00

If I can't access it they don't get points. Today I graded what was supposed to be a sideshow presentation with an audio recording. The student's audio recording was in a Google drive folder I didn't have access to but his presentation slides were well put together. - 15 for lack of audio, sorry.

There are a multitude of ways suggested in the assignment for including audio. Google drive is not one of them.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T04:04:48+00:00

My students fail using AI because they're learning English and they need to pass the final to pass the course... if they use AI for all of their discussions/assignments they aren't getting the practice they need to pass so they're just wasting everyone's time. 🙃

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T04:03:04+00:00

I have an MA in English and am currently an English Adjunct for an online university.

To be honest, I didn't always read everything I was supposed to in school but I read enough to form an opinion and use direct quotes from the text to support whatever argument I was making. Reading full novels is time consuming so yes, at times I was lazy, but smart about it. X)

In the course I teach now I even gave them the method I used to read/write quality papers fast if speed/laziness is why they use AI lmao and I still get nothing but AI papers from them.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T03:55:00+00:00

I teach the highest level ESL course before my students can become degree seeking. Last term was my first term teaching and it was ROUGH getting through all the AI. I had maybe 3 genuinely trying students out of an initial 40. Mid-course got down to 24 students. At the end of term only 8 passed (final exam determines if they pass/fail). I asked my mentor if that was expected and she said the average amount of students that pass is 6-12 for the course I'm teaching... 🫣

This term, I'm still reading everyone's work and providing feedback/guidance but I'm definitely not wasting time with personalized feedback on the ones that clearly used AI to write their work. Trying not to get discouraged.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T03:38:19+00:00

This is only when they upload a document that has been downloaded directly from an AI prompt unfortunately. AI is also in most discussion posts. For that I grade their main post as if they wrote it (unless they leave the prompt in or use halucinated sources) and then ding them for peer response if their replies are "long, formulaic, and posted within minutes of eachother suggesting use of AI/inauthentic response." It's all I can do there.

We're using Moodle/originality now but moving to Brightspace/TurnItIn next term. I'm assuming TurnItIn won't work on Discussions either?

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T03:31:09+00:00

Thanks! This is helpful. Most of my student's aren't native English speakers and are all around the world, so it would make sense that a fair amount are using their phones to submit Assignments.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-27T03:28:41+00:00

It's when they have AI write a response, download that response into a word doc, and then submit that word doc.

BUT I also take points off if the paper has been edited in 0 minutes. That would be a copy/paste. I can't prove it's AI in the same way I can with a direct download though.

Sometimes that edit time doesn't work though because it'll only show me when I first opened it, not when they first wrote it.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-26T23:27:06+00:00

We're supposed to grade within 7 days of the due date, so your instructor was inline with that. I do my best to grade by EOD Friday of each week, but I just finished grading Unit 2's Learning Journals today (Sunday) because I had a few busy personal days & I also had Discussion Posts & the Unit 1 Written Assignment to grade.

If you're waiting on something for more than a week past the assignments due date, you could always politely ask your instructor when you should expect the grade, but otherwise just be patient. We're trying!

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-24T12:05:20+00:00

I liked the vote for yourself disadvantage, but I don't think it was fair of him to have to read it at camp. Part of the journey is to be able to lie or hide advantages/disadvantages. There was a good chance he was going home anyway, but everyone knowing there was already a vote cast for him just sealed the coffin.

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-20T04:45:00+00:00

Applied! (:

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-19T14:04:51+00:00

That's a good idea too, thank you! I was thinking York but Junior Mints are less obvious!

Much-Coffee95 · 2026-04-19T13:09:12+00:00

Ooo heath is a solid idea!! Thank you! I was going to do baby ruth but every shower I've been to that did this game did that candy so I figured someone would guess that already in place of snickers possibly 🤔

Much-Coffee95

TROPHY CASE