Written by Paul Kortepeter

In the winter of 2023, when ChatGPT hit schools like a meteorite, I instantly saw the threat to English composition. One of my best students, racing to meet a deadline, tried to pass off an AI-generated essay as her own. I quickly spotted that the essay wasn’t hers. Its insipid tone and formulaic sentences betrayed her voice. Yet, in just two years, chatbots have roared ahead with turbo-charged power, far beyond their pioneer-buggy days. Now, I struggle to distinguish human from machine composition, especially when a student might prompt their favorite chatbot for “a few mistakes to sound like an eighth grader.” These AI engines threaten not only to upend English composition but to erase human creativity itself. This isn’t just my concern. This is coming from the creators and enablers of AI technology who foresee, often with dread, the abolition of man. And yet they can’t seem to resist hastening us along to our end.

As teachers, as schools, we cannot allow this abolition to happen. To think for ourselves—and not through the sterile filter of machine learning—is a sacred and necessary human effort. To be clear, I don’t oppose AI as a tool, like a calculator or a robot lawn mower. I oppose AI as a displacer of human thought. And one of the ways we think best, reflect best, and analyze best is through writing. The written word gives us both struggle and pleasure.

Young people often take the path of least resistance when it comes to the effort of schoolwork. Chatbots represent one easy way to circumvent the rigors of attention, reflection, and thoroughness. If children are allowed to take shortcuts when faced with difficult tasks, they almost certainly will. They will become less capable of inviting struggle and perseverance into their lives. Sometimes struggle is the point. Young people need to grow in the understanding that life is naturally full of struggle, which is to be strenuously engaged. If they don’t embrace struggle, they don’t develop resilience. Their sense of confidence and purpose will be stunted. Our high-tech devices also eliminate time for boredom and rest, which are the necessary laboratories for creativity. Boredom is healthy! It leads to inventiveness.

One MIT study, just out in June of 2025, states the inevitable—that students who use Large Language Models (like ChatGPT) for composition become dumber. The study reports, “Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.”

Unfortunately, unless students have a well-developed sense of ethics, they will see no harm in passing off machine-generated compositions as their own. The Center for Academic Integrity tells us that 58% of high school students admit to plagiarism, and that was before ChatGPT. To further muddy the waters, there is even some debate about whether using ChatGPT is plagiarism at all. Wired Magazine tells us that “Students and professors can’t decide whether the AI chatbot is a research tool—or a cheating engine.” It goes on to say that “when the work is generated by something rather than someone,” the definition of plagiarism as using someone’s work without proper credit “is tricky to apply.”

I hope it’s not tricky for you or for me. Is a student passing a machine’s words off as original content? Yes? Then that’s plagiarism. The writing did not originate with the student. Come to think of it, the writing used by the machine also did not originate with the machine. It was stolen from countless authors and thinkers throughout the ages. So, pinching words from chatbots, our large language models, is plagiarizing a plagiarist on a massive scale—GPT 4 has trillions of parameters. 

Schools can keep students composing and thinking for themselves in a number of ways. Computers and screens can be banished from humanities classrooms. In-school composition and testing can and should revert to pencil and pen for most students, where the outpouring of thought becomes tangible in one’s own handwriting. Far from poorly equipping young people to function in a technological era, analog composition will help them to be more clear and flexible thinkers. 

Teachers should also create AI-resistant writing assignments that require unique or personal insights. Examples: “Reflect on a time when you were able to overcome a fear.” “Write a letter to your future self, imparting advice and wisdom you suspect you might someday need.” “Interview a classmate about a book or movie that profoundly shifted how she sees life.”

We can also undercut AI assistance when we emphasize the writing process (brainstorming, prewriting, drafting, revising) rather than just the final composition. Require your students to submit outlines and revisions alongside their final work. Much of the writing process should be done in class, away from the temptation to go online.

Prescient as always, C.S. Lewis believed that people lose touch with what’s important when they pursue a utopian future of the sort promised by AI. In his satire The Screwtape Letters, he writes, “We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.” When we surrender our pens to AI’s massive power, we risk losing the human gifts of reflection and authenticity.

This danger looms larger still when we imagine a future where AI, emboldened by our deference, declares, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” like the pharaoh in Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. What would our students do if some future iteration of the machine declared, “I am God!” Would they bow down and worship it? No—not if they can think for themselves. The effort of writing shapes us to be more reflective, more present, and more capable of honesty, kindness, and happiness. It anchors us to the truth of our humanity, ensuring we remain fully alive, rather than mere artifacts in a world of machines. And that will make all the difference in the lives of our children and students.