Teachers who assign essays on famous poems now face a practical problem, because chatbots can produce a competent analysis of almost any well-known text in seconds. Poems from Catherine Reilly's Scars Upon My Heart sit in a useful middle zone, since they are less saturated online than canonical war poems and therefore harder for a chatbot to discuss with confidence. That is a helpful advantage, but it is not a complete solution on its own.

Relying on detection software is a risky strategy, since these tools can produce false accusations and are easy to evade. A more durable approach is to design assignments in which the process of thinking is visible and the specific work is hard to outsource. This shifts the question from catching misconduct to creating conditions where honest work is both rewarded and practical.

Start by being explicit about your policy. Students should know whether any AI use is permitted, for example brainstorming but not drafting, and what they must disclose if they use it. Ambiguity is the main driver of accidental violations, and a clear one-page statement attached to the assignment prevents many problems before they begin.

Make the Process Part of the Grade

When a grade depends only on a polished final essay, students have every incentive to find a shortcut. Building in annotated copies of the poem, a thesis proposal, an outline, and a rough draft changes the incentive, because the student must produce visible evidence of thinking along the way. These checkpoints also give you opportunities to give feedback while it can still change the final product.

• Require annotations made by hand or in class on a printed copy of the poem
• Collect a thesis and outline before the full draft is due
• Ask for a short reflection explaining one decision the student changed during revision
• Include a brief conversation or oral defense of one paragraph
• Tie the prompt to class discussion details that a chatbot would not know

Use Prompts That Require Specific Engagement

Generic prompts invite generic essays. A prompt that asks students to analyze how a poem's final stanza revises something established earlier, and to connect that to an idea discussed in class, requires specific engagement with a particular text and conversation. Chatbots can still attempt this, but the results tend to be vaguer and easier to distinguish from authentic work.

Consider requiring students to quote a minimum number of lines and to explain each one in their own words. Fabricated or inaccurate quotations are a common weakness of AI-generated analysis of obscure poems, so checking quotations against the source text is a quick and reliable verification step. This protects academic integrity without accusing anyone of anything.

Grade for What Students Can Demonstrate

Rubrics can reinforce the same goals by rewarding evidence of original thinking. Criteria such as "connects a specific detail to a larger interpretation" or "responds to a counterargument raised in class" favor work grounded in the student's own experience of the poem. Generic summary or polished but empty prose should earn less credit in any case.

AI-assisted grading tools can help here by flagging essays with quotations that do not appear in the poem or with claims that never connect to specific lines. Teachers can then examine those papers more closely. Used this way, technology supports fair assessment instead of becoming part of an arms race between students and detectors.

Handle Suspicions With Care

If you suspect a student used AI inappropriately, begin with a conversation instead of an accusation. Ask them to explain their argument, discuss a paragraph, or talk through how they chose a quotation. A student who wrote the essay can usually do this easily, and the conversation will tell you much more than a detector score.

Keep the focus on learning. Many students who misuse these tools are overwhelmed or unsure how to start, and addressing those underlying problems is more effective than punishment alone. Clear expectations, supportive structure, and fair consequences work together to build an honest culture around writing.