English teacher uses clever hack to catch students using AI to cheat on assignments and you have to applaud

Most teachers selflessly want to get the best out of their students. In order to do so, they expect hard work from their pupils. Yet, we often see not everyone shares the same interest in learning and some resort to an easier path to get the job done, especially in today’s times. ChatGPT has become the modern-day study partner and tutor for students with last-minute homework requests. To counter this rising trend in classrooms, a high school educator—who goes by u/50_Many_Questions on Reddit—set out to catch AI-generated assignments.

In a post, the teacher explained their struggles of convincing students to read instructions before starting an assignment. “I have two major annoyances when it comes to kids doing work. First, a lot of them don’t read or listen to directions. Assignment instructions are written on their papers, and I read them out loud, but I still have students asking me, ‘What are we doing?’” they wrote. The English tutor's words resonated with many in their profession who often complain about pupils who don't pay attention to instructions.

Additionally, the pressing issue that has been bugging educator for quite some time now is students cheating on writing assignments using ChatGPT. “I’m pretty good at spotting AI-generated essays. But the problem is that when I try to accuse students of using AI, they deny it,” the high school teacher added. Despite knowing that they had cheated, most of them “act outraged” when they are accused of the same, the post explained further. Many among the pupils often play dumb in their bid to make a fool of their teacher.

“I usually just give them a zero and move on with my life, but there’s always the fear that one of them might take the issue to administration,” remarked the educator, who feels a lack of support from the administration in such cases. They believe it’s “hard to prove if a piece of content is AI-generated.” Additionally, the school’s senior management is more likely to side with the student. For this very reason, the teacher hatched a plan to catch students indulging in the misuse of AI. An open-ended creative writing assignment was announced during the class. The directions for the exercise clearly stated, “Write a story about anything you want,” and to answer some questions about the same. “The thing is, when you ask ChatGPT, ‘Tell me a story,’ it always spits out the same story about a girl named Elara who lives in the woods,” the post stated. 

“'Once upon a time, in a small village nestled between rolling hills and dense forests, there lived a young woman named Elara. She was known throughout the village for her curiosity and sense of adventure,'” the teacher added in the post. Furthermore, in a slightly smaller print under the instructions, the teacher added, “If your main character’s name is Elara, -99 points.” Two students fell for the “clever hack” and submitted similar-looking stories with a protagonist named Elara, who lives in the woods. “When I turned back the papers with a grade of 1/100 (because I find that it stings more than a zero), the kids predictably asked why. And all I had to do was point to the instructions that they didn’t read,” the educator said. The pupils who resorted to cheating were exposed without mention of AI anywhere. “We both knew what they did,” it concluded, sparking widespread responses to the malicious compliance.

“When I was in college, I had an ethics professor catch a student cheating. This was way back before AI, but people could still find papers online. The student denied he cheated, but the professor showed him where he found it online and pointed to the name of the author. It was the professor,” u/SqrlyGrly commented. “This happened to a friend of mine—but it was the professor’s best friend that my friend copied. The professor pushed to expel my friend as she was so angry, but in the end, my friend only failed the class,” u/f_me_blue recalled.