Let’s think this through before throwing the book at middle school students.

Most teachers remember the conversation around plagiarism and academic dishonesty in their undergraduate programs in college or university.

The vibe was intense.

Try it, get caught, and you could suffer serious academic penalties.

You could fail your course. Be removed from your degree program. Get kicked out of school entirely.

This was heavy, heavy stuff. Still is.

And it’s fresh on the minds of most teachers when they enter their K-12 classrooms.

Academic dishonesty in the 2000s

I’ve taught in the middle years for over 20 years. When I started teaching in 2001, wifi wasn’t a thing.

That gives you a sense of how things have evolved in the years since.

I remember when the internet finally arrived in our computer lab via LAN connections and we started to see the first clumsy attempts at academic dishonesty. Students were learning — like all of us — about the power of copy and paste.

Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V.

Magic. Could writing actually become this easy?

All the text jumped from some wonky website right into that 8th grade Social Studies essay with a few flourishes of the mouse and a couple of keystrokes.

So simple. Just hit that print command and let the noisy beast of a bubble jet printer do its work.

Of course, students in 2010 hadn’t quite figured out that their copying and pasting was leaving obvious tell-tale signs.

Unusual font styles and sizes were giving them away. Even funnier, source URLs were sometimes left directly in the text of essays or appeared elsewhere on the page, especially if they dared to print their “essay” straight from another website.

Thoughtful conversations followed such missteps.

Academic dishonesty in the age of Chat GPT

Fast forward to 2023 and the explosion in AI that we’ve all witnessed this year. Chat GPT and its clones have disrupted the technology landscape and redefined possibilities for composition.

Suddenly, it’s easier than ever to generate large bodies of text and claim authorship. For some students in grades five through nine, let’s say, the thought must be incredibly tantalizing.

These learners are digital natives, yes, but they’re also building new digital literacy skills.

• They’re still new to email and appropriate email communication.
• They’re new to task lists and calendars and cloud drive organization.
• They’re new to academic research and appropriate citation.
• And they’re still learning to formulate positions and justify arguments in clear, coherent, compelling ways.

They haven’t been at any of it for long, but they’re fearless. They’re ready to play and experiment.

They’re ready to be serious and fun and industrious and goofy and persuasive and inappropriate all in one day.

So we should expect them to try some moves with AI writing tools.

How to respond when middle years students turn in work created (maybe) by artificial intelligence

You’ll notice that I keep mentioning middle years. That’s intentional.

When it comes to seniors in 12th grade, for example, I recognize that the stakes are higher.

Those learners should also have a little more perspective, a little more awareness, a little more responsibility to own when it comes to academic honesty and originality of thought.

But when it comes to students in the middle years, I’m thinking of kids between the ages of 10–15 who in many cases have not had computers at their desks for long.

In my context, students don’t move to 1:1 Chromebooks until sixth grade. Their use of computers and iPads before that is rare and intermittent.

As I mentioned, they’re still in the thick of digital literacy skill acquisition.

With that in mind, I think it’s possible to over-respond when it comes to instances of AI-powered cheating. Frankly, “cheating” may not even be the right term in a lot of cases.

When a 12-year-old uses an AI tool to produce (or heavily supplement) an academic piece and then claim the work as entirely their own, my reaction is NOT “Oh my God, how could this happen?”

Not at all. I fully expect it to happen.

I mean, wouldn’t we be naive not to?

No, I’m not scheduling a serious meeting with this student and the principal. I’m not contacting the child’s parents with a heavy-sounding email (not in the first instance, at least).

I’m not pursuing a heavy consequence, suspension, failure, or a zero on the assignment.

I may make colleagues aware of what has happened in a casual, helpful sense, but I’m not putting out an all-caps distress call.

Instead, I’m going to approach the situation as an act of curiosity and experimentation.

Instead of horror, I’m going to enjoy the conversation that follows.

This is not advocating for plagiarism

I was thinking through some of this stuff out loud on X.com when Barbara shared this reply.

If what you’re hearing is me “advocating for plagiarism,” I think you’re missing my point here.

What I’m calling for here is a bit of a change in approach when it comes to students who are 10–15 years of age.

We know these kids.

We know their developmental traits.

We know they are experimental and risk-embracing.

We know they are playing with alter-egos and unsavory online activities, in many cases.

These students lack the maturity, perspective, judgment, and experience of their older peers.

So what I’m calling for is not about ‘going soft’ or ‘letting cheating go.’ Not at all. In fact, while we’re talking about punitive measures, I’d be the first to say that chronic offenders require very different responses.

But when it comes to our first-time offenders, our experimenters, our ill-advised Chat GPTers, I’d suggest proceeding with calm and thoughtful care.

Instead of throwing the book (or the computer?) at these students or initiating large-scale investigations, let’s engage in thoughtful conversations.

Conversations that might sound like …

• “Hey, I like what you wrote here. Can you tell me about your writing process?”
• “This is good stuff, my friend. Can you tell me a little more about your argument here in the third paragraph?”
• “Great work on your persuasive essay. It looks like you may need to cite your sources, though. Do you think you can do that and then re-submit?”

These are gentle, open-ended questions that nudge and prod around the edges of your suspicions. They’re curious. They sound like learning partnership, not lead attorney for the prosecution.

They strike an entirely different posture than “Did you or did you not use Chat GPT for this?”

Assessment means to sit beside

Hey, it’s possible that our middle schooler in question may not be entirely honest about the role of AI in their writing process. They may offer a few lies to cover their tracks.

In the short term, that’s not such a huge deal. Keep your relationship with this student strong and move on. There will be plenty of other learning opportunities to come.

I find it a little puzzling when I hear teachers express their hell-bent commitment to prevent a student from “getting away with this.”

I mean, take a deep breath, my friend. Mikey hasn’t stolen money from your safe deposit box. It’s simply possible that not all of this writing was actually his.

Again, I’m not diminishing the seriousness of cheating. What I’m saying is that this is not the time to call in the cavalry. The sky is not falling in here.

What it actually IS time for is to do more sitting with this student. And by that I mean literally sitting with him.

Support him, encourage him, coach him through his writing process.

After all, what’s our goal for this student?

It’s to help him meet learning targets or curricular standards.

It’s to help him become a better writer and communicator.

It’s to help him learn.

May I humbly suggest that jumping to angry accusations, threatening a zero, or conducting large-scale investigations regarding did he or did he not cheat on this essay has the potential to be a lose-lose situation.

Nobody’s winning here.

Instead, focus on more partnership. More presence. More coaching. More real-time observation.

Do that, and I think we’ll all get the results that we want — teacher and student.

It’s a brave new artificial world out there.

Let’s learn together.