Few short stories have been analyzed as often as "The Lottery." Study guides, summaries, and now AI-generated essays are one search away. That makes it a hard text to assign without wondering how much of what comes back was written by the student.

Trying to catch every generic paper is a losing game. Detection tools have known limits, and false accusations do real harm to students. A more reliable answer is to design assignments and rubrics that make generic responses score poorly.

Generic essays share a recognizable pattern. They make broad claims about tradition and conformity, use safe and familiar evidence, and avoid any detail that would tie them to a particular classroom. The trick is to ask for exactly what such an essay cannot supply.

That starts with the prompt. Questions that require a specific choice, a specific passage, or a specific connection to class discussion are hard to answer from a summary. They also happen to be better assignments.

Prompt Features That Reward Specific Thinking

Add constraints that require students to engage the text closely. Ask for a passage of their own choosing, or tie the prompt to an in-class activity. Small changes like these make copied answers stand out.

• Ask students to choose one sentence from the story and argue why it matters more than any other
• Require a connection to a specific discussion, annotation, or activity from your class
• Ask for a personal decision, such as which character's choice they would defend, and why
• Include a short in-class writing step that shows the student's own voice
• Ask students to explain a place where they changed their mind while reading

Grading for Specificity

Adjust the rubric so that specificity earns points. Reward exact details, well-chosen evidence, and analysis that could only apply to this story. A generic paragraph about tradition should land in the middle of the scale, not the top.

This shifts the incentive without requiring you to prove anything about how the essay was written. Students who wrote thoughtfully are rewarded, and students who did not are scored accurately. It is a fairer conversation for everyone.

Using Process Evidence

Drafts, outlines, and short in-class writes give you a baseline of each student's style. When a final essay departs sharply from that, you have a reason to talk with the student. That conversation should start with curiosity, not accusation.

A brief oral check, where the student explains their argument in two minutes, is another low-stakes way to confirm understanding. Most students who wrote their own essays can do it easily. It also reinforces that the point of the assignment is thinking.

Feedback Tools and Academic Integrity

AI grading tools work from the student's submission and your rubric, and they do not solve the authorship question on their own. What they can do is apply consistent standards and highlight when an essay lacks the specificity your criteria demand. That signal is useful, if you treat it as a prompt for your own judgment.

Be transparent with students about how AI is used in your class, both for them and for you. Clear policies reduce confusion and the temptation to cut corners. Trust built early makes the rest of the year easier.