AI in the Classroom: Robbing Students of Their Voice

When Chat GPT first came on the scene less than two years ago, I started to notice something strange happening in some of my students’ work. Where once there was a process – a progression between drafts where I could see their ideas develop, their arguments become more persuasive, their sentences more concise, suddenly they were submitting perfectly worded and organized drafts on the first submission. The only problem (aside from the obvious ethical ones) was this work lacked one important thing: voice. The work written by AI all sounded the same and and was devoid of any real opinion. Even students who used AI to write a personal narrative (yes, that happened), wound up with details that were vague and lifeless.

At the time, I didn’t understand what was happening. How did everyone’s grammar suddenly become perfect but their personality and intelligence disappear? Soon, news of this new technology was everywhere and soon there were tools for educators to help detect AI generated work (although they are not 100% accurate and students are already figuring out how to get around them). I added an AI policy to my syllabus – I treat it the same way I treat plagiarism. If you didn’t write it but are taking credit for having written it that’s cheating, and the grade is a zero. Sounds simple enough but the reality is most of us English teachers have to handle each instance on a case-by-case basis. When it’s terribly egregious - multiple AI detection sites rate the text as being 100% AI generated - I ask the student if they agree with the assessment and most of the time they do. If they don’t, I ask them to tell me how they came up with these ideas or what some of the more sophisticated words mean. But mostly I’ll ask where is your voice?

I talk about it in class with students. I tell them there are certainly times where using AI is fine, like if you work at a bank and have to write some generic script about how to train a new employe, but in a writing class where we are learning how to think and how to express our thoughts, it has no place. I know some professors are using it in their courses and I’ve been getting emails about conferences and webinars that will show me how I too can use it in a writing class, but I’m not interested. Maybe I’m too rigid but I just haven’t heard a good argument yet for how it will help students learn to write.

I tell my students what makes humans special is our ability to think critically and to be creative. Each of us has a unique voice and if we give that up to the machines, what’s the point?