‘Did a student write this?’ Writing still needs to be taught.

Plagiarism is not new in the writing world. At any level, writing is a challenging intellectual pursuit, whether it is a 6-year-old stringing together his first few sentences or a doctoral candidate slogging through her 200-page dissertation.

Do you recall the groans, the anxiety, and that feeling of dread on the day your high school English teacher assigned a multi-page research paper? I do. I was right there, huffing and puffing. 

Under these circumstances, it is easy to see why some might turn to plagiarism or fabrication to avoid such stress. However, this approach could incur severe academic consequences. Despite this, many take the risk. 

But what if there were a technology that could make all of these stressors go away? What if instead of writing an entire essay, you could just type, speak, or copy and paste a few lines of text to complete this dreaded ordeal? What if it was almost impossible to detect or prove if you used this technology?

This is what artificial intelligence offers to writers of all ability levels and ages — immediate relief from the stress of writing. The stress of being caught is almost nonexistent. AI detectors consistently misidentify AI use when there is none or fail to recognize the use of an AI humanizer — rendering their use to hold writers accountable largely moot. 

Such instantaneous relief, while momentarily soothing, comes at a high cost. The stress and process of writing teaches growth, intellectual resilience, critical thinking, and reflection upon one’s ideas: vital habits for a functioning adult to possess, let alone a thriving society. None of that is realized when AI is used to write for you. 

This use of AI is happening in nearly every school. A steep drop-off in cognitive ability is starting to take shape, with unknown consequences yet to be seen. 

Figuring out how to teach writing in the age of AI must be at the forefront of every school district’s curriculum plans for the 2026-2027 school year.  

How to teach writing post-AI

In the past, whenever a student essay came across my desk, I would ask myself, “Did the student actually write this?” To answer that question, I would run the essay through a plagiarism checker that compared the student’s work against published material available across the internet.

I did not ask this question to catch students plagiarizing or cheating. Rather, it was an attempt to keep myself and students honest and committed to the intellectual fruits of the writing process. 

This question takes on even more importance and pertinence in the face of AI. This technological leap threatens to make writing irrelevant. In a recent article in The Atlantic, Rose Horowitch bluntly presents this possibility: “Generative AI is the first tool to threaten the continued existence of writing.” Traditional plagiarism seems rather minuscule compared to this threat. 

Horowitch’s words are startling and sobering. If students are not taught how to use AI responsibly without losing the foundational skills of writing, and if schools do not step up to build curricula around this new reality, the intellectual habits that come along with writing will disappear as well. 

How to teach writing now

Since the early 2000s, waves of technology have entered the classroom under the guise that they would help increase student academic achievement. Millions of dollars later, national test scores indicate that this was not the case. If anything, the opposite has been happening. Excess classroom technology has hurt student academic achievement.

AI is the newest wave of this technology. It completely short-circuits the writing and learning process by doing both the thinking and writing for students.

To counteract this short-circuiting, the pervasive use of classroom Chromebooks and tablets must end. The earlier the grade, the better. Students should learn to use AI responsibly at higher grade levels, but the younger the mind, the less time it should be interacting with AI or screens. 

It is far too tempting and easy to access AI on any internet-connected device — school web filters engaged or not. 

Schools must therefore embrace the challenging work of paper-based process writing. Putting pen to paper activates motor neural pathways that help students understand and memorize the subtle mechanics of writing. These pathways are the developmentally essential building blocks for creative problem solving and critical thinking.

This process also requires students to slow down when writing, creating critical space for introspection and deeper consideration of their ideas. 

Growing up is hard enough. Confusing, embarrassing, painful, and troublesome.  No one looks back at their K-12 experiences and thinks they nailed them. Process writing can help students develop mental frameworks to evaluate and act upon the information that they are presented with by peers and adults. In this way, writing helps students anchor themselves amid the turbulence they must go through. 

Process writing on paper is frustrating and imperfect. This is the point. This builds resilience and prepares students to deal with the imperfect world they will encounter upon graduation and in their careers. AI strips away this imperfection and oversmooths the process of productive struggle and social skill building. 

Only after students have wrestled with this essential struggle and reaped the benefits of the habits it cultivates should AI be introduced as a tool for career preparation or enrichment.

Writing is time-tested 

Since the time of Plato, writing has been seen as the foundation of critical thought and intellectual resilience. It is considered a historically liberating set of habits.

Writing passes down knowledge, topples kings, sparks scientific advancement, and raises individuals out of poverty. It is one of the most powerful inventions the human mind has ever conceived. Now society risks becoming post-literate. 

AI has the potential to wipe out the entire concept of human thinking as we know it and replace it with something deeply unhuman.

If schools do not come to terms with this now, I fear that the entire academic process may be akin to a quote from James Cameron’s “Titanic”: 

“There’s (Captain) Smith and he’s standing there and he’s got the iceberg warning in … his hand, and he’s ordering more speed.”

AI is a looming iceberg.