Is it AI?

“Miss!” my student wailed, “my story is showing up as AI on all the checkers, but it’s not AI. I swear I wrote it!”

Forgive me if I immediately doubted her. The story was due that day and, from what I could tell, she’d spent at least as much time in class playing on her phone under her desk as she had actually writing. I also knew that she was very grades-driven, often sharing her results with friends as they measured their success and, I think, some of their self-worth by the numbers on their assignments. Others in the class might value learning over grades, but with her… I wasn’t sure.

Her friend made a face. “I hate those AI checkers,” she muttered, and she glared at me, as if daring me to say that her friend’s work might be faked. I knew she had just gone through a big blow up with another teacher over work that was flagged as AI. She had been extremely upset and threatened to drop the class (which would have harmed her far more than the teacher). Her guidance counsellor, her friends and I had talked her down, but it had been a near-run thing. And honestly? I figured she probably had used AI and was just mad that she got caught. Again, a nice kid, but very grade-focused.

I pulled up the first student’s story and glanced at it. My heart sank. The first paragraph was really good. “Don’t worry,” I said, even though I was worried, “I’ll check over your process work and trust that over machines.”

Her body relaxed with relief, and she slid into her seat. Her friend huffed again. “I wish every teacher would do that.” I wondered if I was being taken for a ride.

What is this constant battle doing to us? I thought, and not for the first time. I hate that dashes – something I’ve spent years teaching students to use well – now make me suspicious. I hate that excellent work now immediately has me turning to AI checkers even though they are wildly unreliable. I hate that I spend time doubting my students’ integrity. The constant suspicion is eroding something in me, eating away at some social contract that I’m not willing to give up.

Last year, my own child’s teacher told the class which AI checkers she was going to use and what percentage of “probably AI” was acceptable. (Was it 12%? 8? Is it weird that some percentage is ok? And that we don’t know what that percentage is?) My child largely did his own writing, although as I helped him, I realized that avoiding AI entirely for his generation is not unlike my generation avoiding plagiarism entirely: there are surprisingly complex layers to it. Still, he did the work: researched and wrote, wrote and researched. Then, he put his writing through the AI checker, and it invariably came back as more AI than was acceptable. His solution? He put his work through a “humanizer” AI until the AI detector showed that it was human.

I couldn’t decide if I should laugh or cry.

After school, I opened up the story that my student may or may not have written. The first paragraph really was excellent, but part way through, I started to see some pretty typical errors – little punctuation mistakes, wording that read like a 17-year-old rather than a computer. Still, just to be safe, I used a couple of AI checkers. They were all over the place. Useless. I checked her version history and her early drafts. Everything I had suggested that this was her work, so I proceeded with that in mind.

Still, I wonder what we lose as we learn the steps to this new, complex dance. Time, for sure. My students (and my child) check their work in various checkers, humanize their work and then turn it in. Then we teachers check the work in various checkers, look at version histories or keystroke trackers and grade it. Every minute we spend using these machines is time we could have spent writing or giving feedback or talking. We also lose a sense of trust – the students no longer trust themselves and heaven knows teachers don’t trust them. I have accused students of using AI who maybe haven’t, and I’ve definitely missed some who have. That, too, is a problem because the bar for acceptable writing is changing. I recently found some of my old college papers, and I don’t want to shock you, but they were imperfect. Now students have spellcheck and grammar checks, and enough kids are able to submit work that is AI enhanced that it’s easy for teachers to expect higher levels of “correctness” than are, perhaps, reasonable. It’s easy to get used to the glib, polished prose that AI generates and to see that as the goal even when we know that it’s not.

And what of my student? Was I influenced by my early concerns as I graded her story? I hope not, but it can be hard to let go of that early whiff of “cheating.” I think I did right by her, but I know I took on some mental load to do that. It’s all so much.

I have more to say about this, but I’m still typing largely one-handed because of my stupid broken wrist – and I’m not using AI to make up for my injury, so it will have to wait for next week. For what it’s worth, her story wasn’t perfect, but it was interesting and emotional. She got an A.

The Colles Fracture

In the late 1770s or, more likely, the early 1780s, young Abraham Colles is said to have found an anatomic textbook floating in the river Nore in Kilkenny, Ireland. Apparently the river had flooded, and the local physician’s textbook had been carried away only to arrive, fortuitously, in Abraham’s hands. Abraham tried to return the book, but Dr. Butler gifted it to him, and thus was born a great physician.

In 1790 Abraham and his brother William enrolled in Trinity College in Dublin. At the same time Abraham became an apprentice at Dr Steevens’ Hospital. When he wasn’t working or studying Abraham could be found sleeping in dark corners of the hospital, perhaps not unlike medical students today who snooze where they can. Once he had finished his degree in Dublin, Abraham moved to Edinburgh where he trained as a graduate student at what was perhaps the best medical school of the time. He graduated from Edinburgh in 1797. From there, stories tell us that he walked to London, a journey of 10 to 14 days.

***

While I have never walked from one place to another for 14 entire days, I have walked every day but one for 2029 days in a row. I started walking daily during the pandemic. A friend suggested a challenge to walk every day from Victoria Day to Labour Day, in part to combat the malaise of those pandemic days. From Labour Day we pushed to Thanksgiving then Christmas and soon our goal became a year of daily walking. After a year, seeing no reason to stop, we continued. And so it went. I walked after work and sometimes in the neighbourhoods around work if I had to stay late. I walked while travelling and while on vacation. I walked through good weather, but also through rain and, in the middle of Canadian winters, through snow and even ice. Walking, in many ways, became part of who I am.

***

After his walk to London, Abraham Colles worked on dissections with the well-known doctor, Astley Cooper. From there, he returned to Dublin and was elected as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a practicing doctor and beloved professor who published three books and over a dozen surgical papers.

As a physician, Dr. Colles was particularly devoted to the importance of dissection. He wanted to show his students “the connection between anatomical structures of each part and the surgical diseases and operations to which it is subject.” To this end, he was known to dissect for up to two hours a day and he kept careful records of what he found.

There’s a lot more to his career, of course, but what’s interesting to me is that all of this careful observation led to Dr Colles’ name being given to a particular fascia, a ligament, and a fracture. In 1814, decades before x-rays came into use, Dr. Colles published a paper about the characteristic “dinner fork” formation of the fracture and showed ways to treat it. Colles fractures usually occur after a person falls onto an outstretched hand*. We often call a Colles fracture a broken wrist, but it is truly a break at the end of the radius bone near the wrist. They are among the most common fractures seen in emergency rooms.

A “fall onto an outstretched hand” is so common that it’s known in Emergency Rooms by the acronym FOOSH. I find this acronym particularly apt as it imitates the sound that happens when you fall. In a way this is an onomatopoeic acronym that causes a fracture which is, itself, an eponym. This is oddly satisfying.

***

I missed one day of walking during those 2029 days because I was truly sick. While my streak had ended, I felt better the next day, so I went out and started walking again. I’d gotten used to it. My daily walks had given me new awareness of the things around me. I now noticed changing flowers and leaves, the way the ice froze in different patterns in the winter, and how the world changed day by day. Somehow observing made me feel more connected to the world and to myself.

But on Sunday morning, my observations of ice and my connection to the world didn’t prevent me from slipping and falling on a patch of ice hidden under the snow. FOOSH! I went down hard, and even though I’m fully an adult, I cried when I landed. After a few minutes, a woman who had been standing across the street wandered over, cigarette in hand, and asked, “you okay?” I very clearly was not.

She seemed vaguely sympathetic but disinclined to help, so I pulled myself up using my left hand on the stop sign next to me. I limped back to my house, tears still in my eyes, holding my right hand against my chest. There, I realized that for the first time in some years, I was home alone: My spouse and older child were visiting universities; my youngest was out with friends. I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t badly injured, but I didn’t need to have years of dissection work under my belt to know that my hand did not look normal. I called an ambulance.

The paramedics were as gentle as possible. Given the prevalence of this sort of break, they must have seen it a hundred times before, so I think they knew. When I finally talked to a doctor, he told me that not only did I break my wrist, I “super broke” my wrist: the X-ray at the hospital revealed that I had sustained the fracture that Abraham Colles identified well over 100 years ago.

The good news is that, while I will need surgery and then have a cast for six weeks, I should heal well. The bad news is that it hurts. And, while I have taken advantage of this injury to show my creative writing students how to write an essay in the style of John Green’s Anthropocene Reviewed I have had to dictate the whole thing and have learned that I do not like dictating essays.

I am impressed with Abraham Colles work and grateful to the medical professionals who are treating me. Nevertheless, I give the Colles fracture one star.

Storytelling

“We all have stories to tell,” I say to my Creative Writing class. “We tell stories all the time. We swim in them.” I draw their attention to the Thomas King quote I’ve put in our Google Classroom: “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.”

Students bob their heads up and down. They are nodding, but they are also wary. After all, we’re starting our “Narrative” unit, and they know they will soon be writing “a story” that they will have to share with others. This is terrifying.

I have been where they are, I tell them, so I am confident that they are brimming with stories – both real and imagined. To prove this, we do an inside/outside activity (also known as concentric circles) – two circles of students, facing each other – and tell each other stories for nearly half the class. A time I was embarrassed, a time I felt proud, a wonderful gift I received or gave... The classroom is alive with voices and laughter. Stories fill the air; we are joyous.

“The stories we tell define who we are,” I say afterward, and I believe it. Then we try to capture some of what we’ve just said, to put our voices on paper. The mood in the room changes. I write, too. It’s hard.

Some days, I write quotations on the board:

“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller.” – Steve Jobs

Even as I scrawl the words on the chalkboard – in yellow or white or pink – I am telling myself secret stories about my own writing, about my own power. At first, I don’t notice these subconscious stories. I write all the time, I think. I am, after all, writing nearly every day. I jot down ideas in random places and tell my students that I am collecting story kernels and poem fragments. I write in front of my students: I start poems and essays; I leave them half-finished to “show my process.” The students have (mostly) turned in their poetry assignments. My best poem sits, unfinished, covered with notes and nudges. I tuck it away.

Meanwhile, Monday evenings come and go. I tell myself that I’m too tired to write anything up, that I will write tomorrow. By Tuesday evening, I tell myself that it’s too late to publish a “Slice of Life” on the Two Writing Teachers blog (my writing haven). I tell myself I’ve missed the window this week, that no one will want to read this late. I will write next week.

Weeks pass. I think that I am not writing in public because I am busy or bored or boring. I think that I have already written about this or talked too much about that. I whisper to myself that a particular story is “not mine to tell” or “will get me in trouble” though I don’t know what for or by whom. One day, I manage to catch hold of a thought as it darts through my mind; almost immediately, its brethren make themselves known: not good enough, not funny enough, not interesting enough, everyone knows this, too many people are reading this, not enough people are reading this…

Ah! Well. I give myself a little lecture about writer’s block and allow myself a little laugh about having been here before. Then I set myself a writing deadline – which I happily ignore. But my self-imposed deadline doesn’t disappear. Instead, it lingers in odd places, growing bolder: “Your students have turned something in,” it says, “why do *you* get to skip writing?” “Writing is reflecting,” it cajoles, “and reflecting makes for good teaching.” “This won’t get easier,” it scolds.

Finally, today – Tuesday, not Monday – in class, not at home, I cave. I ink the word WRITE in my calendar. I come home, play games on my phone, do a little training with the dog, chat with the children, tidy… and then I make myself say the thing out loud, even if it’s under my breath.

“I am a writer.”

And I write.

After all, “We become the stories we tell ourselves.” – Michael Cunningham

Next week, I will write again.

The student (prose poem)

April is Poetry Month, so I’ve been occasionally stopping over at EthicalELA to participate in Verse love and write some poetry. The people who write there are incredibly supportive, which encourages me to keep playing even though writing poetry intimidates me. Today’s prompt suggested writing a prose poem (a poem that looks like a paragraph but reads, somehow, like poetry), something which has fascinated me for a few years now – ever since I discovered Nicole Stellon O’Donnell’s book of poems You Are No Longer In Trouble – specifically, the poem “Marriage,” which makes me giggle. Here, see what I mean:

Marriage

The rash of weddings at recess continued until Mrs. Provencher had to give a talk. You are third graders. You cannot be married. Parents had called to express their concerns. The margarine tubs full of violets in your desk were bouquets and the flower girls had carried them, stems pressed into foil pilfered from the kitchen drawer. She can say what she wants, but you were married to Doug M. all those years ago, bound by asphalt promises over the screech of the swings’ metal chains.

Margaret Simon suggested that we use Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello’s prose poem, The Houseguest as a model and personify an emotion, so I gave it a go. Here’s what I wrote.

The student

Curiosity pops into your classroom before the first bell. You are writing the date on the blackboard – neatly, in the upper right-hand corner, in cursive. You finish, then place the chalk in its tray. Next, you connect the cord to your computer then cast about for the remote control. Curiosity discovers it over near the bookshelves and brings it to you. You continue your morning routine, aware that Curiosity is watching: straighten the student desks; sift through the papers. You want to settle in, but Curiosity has found the magnetic poetry in the back corner and is busy creating crude verses – and cackling. You hesitate, trapped in the fun house mirror as you pretend not to watch Curiosity who is pretending not to watch you. Should you interrupt the word play? Stop the game? Once, you would have sidled up next to Curiosity and, snickering, added an “s” to “as”. Once, you would have scrawled the verse on the walls in permanent marker. Once, you would have grabbed Curiosity’s wrist and run out of the classroom before the bell, after you had both arrived early. Today, you quietly allow Curiosity to continue writing poetry.

I Can Do Hard Things #SOLC25 31/31

Not for the first time this month, I nearly forgot to write. Tonight seems egregious, since it’s the last post of the March Challenge, but there it is. I’m the mom who would forget to leave the house with a spare diaper, even with the second baby – even when the second baby was over a year old. Apparently I have trouble forming new habits.

Of course, part of the reason I almost forgot to write is that I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Wrapping up a month’s worth of daily writing and publishing is definitely part of the challenge, and this year is no different. I’ve been trying to put into words what I’ve learned this time around, or at least what I experienced. In my head, I’m close to knowing; in writing, I’m a little farther away from conclusions.

This March, I’ve sort of shoehorned writing in around other things. Some years I feel like it’s been more central to the month; this year it’s been more part of the fabric of my days. Predictably, some days have been tough, but mostly I had something to say when I sat down to write. As usual, I feel that I haven’t commented on nearly enough blogs, and I’m missing reading some of my “regulars.” I’ve come to recognize that this is ok.

Mostly, this March has been a reminder that I can do hard things – and I’m allowed to do them in a way that works for me. Write in the evening instead of in the morning? I can do that. Some days comment on only three or four other blogs? I can do that, too. Write a two-sentence post? Sure. Or use almost all pictures? Ok. Heck, accidentally post about extremely similar dinner conversations in the space of three days? Go for it. This month I have forgiven myself over and over for things that, as it turns out, others don’t even notice. Who knew that writing every day would help me continue to shed the shoulds that have governed my life for so long.

Tonight, I went to a class at my gym that I have never tried before. It “includes a little more intensity and choreography than our usual.” Since I can barely keep up with the “usual,” I wasn’t sure that I was making a good choice, but I did it anyway. I had to stop a few times, and for one entire “choreo” track, I gave up and just did my own basic steps. No one cared and I got a great workout. Once I got home, I had to wait a while to stop sweating – which is part of why I nearly forgot to write. The whole thing was more than my usual, but I can still feel the buzz of energy from having finished.

March is like that: it’s more than my usual, but the buzz – from the writing, from the community, from the challenge – lingers long afterwards, and it’s totally worth it.

See you on Tuesdays! (Um, yes, that’s tomorrow.)

The Blank Page #SOLC25 28/31

Tonight, I offer a true free write – from my brain to the page, and then to your brain. I warn you now: it got odd.

It’s not that I don’t have anything to write, it’s that I have everything to write.

It’s not that I have everything to write, it’s that I don’t have the time to write what I want in the way that I want to.

It’s not that I don’t have the time to write what I want in the way that I want to, it’s that I am doing too many things.

It’s not that I am doing too many things, it’s that there are so many things I want to do.

It’s not that there are so many things I want to do, it’s that I keep doing things that aren’t that important to me.

It’s not that I keep doing things that aren’t important to me, it’s that so many things must be done.

It’s not that so many things must be done, it’s that I’m not managing my time well.

It’s not that I’m not managing my time well, it’s that there’s not enough time to do everything.

It’s not that there’s not there’s not enough time to do everything, it’s the idea that there is everything to do.

Usually, when my brain reaches this point, I take a bath.

When I take a bath, I sometimes look at the state of my toenails. They could almost always use some love. Sometimes when I look at the state of my toenails, I wonder what they would look like if I had married the man who was interested in my feet when I was in my twenties. We didn’t date or anything – I didn’t even know him well; he was my roommate’s colleague, an attractive South African man who sometimes came by. Several times, he mentioned how much he liked my painted toenails. It turns out, he also mentioned them to my roommate once or twice when I was not there. Apparently he liked my feet. This felt… unusual.

Sometimes, I imagine that I married the handsome South African who I did not know well and who found my feet attractive. I imagine that my feet now would be amazing. I would get regular pedicures and I would not have done things that made my feet spread and whatnot over the years. If we had had children, I would not have walked around barefoot in the heat during my pregnancies. I would spend a lot of money on shoes, and they would all fit me perfectly, so my feet wouldn’t have the weird lumps and bumps that feet sometimes acquire. I probably would not do yoga or run. These things are hard on one’s feet.

I suspect that by now, if I had married him, I would resent the attention that my feet required. I would get pedicures, but I wouldn’t think of them as a wonderful indulgence; instead, I would consider them wasteful and time-consuming. I would look at women on their way to yoga and long for the inner peace I imagined they experienced. I would think wistfully of buying cheap shoes at PayLess and I would resent the way my friends casually compared me to Imelda Marcos. Maybe I would be considering divorce – or already divorced! – because I was so frustrated at having to take care of my feet.

I get out of the tub, happy with the revelation that I have better things to do than take care of my feet – things like write a slice of life about the weird ways my brain works. Then my spouse, who is not South African and probably prefers my writing to my feet, comes and settles in next to me. “I think my brain is better than my feet,” I whisper, and, while he looks perplexed, to my delight, he agrees.

4-4-4 #SOLC25 23/31

This evening, after several false starts (possibly because I’m still a little tired from whatever illness got me down yesterday), I decided to do a 4-4-4: write about four things within four feet of you for four minutes. I set the timer & wrote, then went to have dinner with the family. Now I’ve spent another minute editing/ tidying. (And probably another minute writing this.) It’s a pretty good way to get writing when I’m feeling stuck. Special thanks to Elisabeth Ellington who used this form earlier this month and to whomever mentioned Saffy’s Angel (maybe as a book her mother liked? Can’t remember.)

***

On the other side of the bookshelf, Mr. 14 is on the computer. What is he doing? I don’t know. I do know that earlier today he let me add him to my Google Classroom to check out a quiz I made. Then he commented on my quiz (“interesting, but hard”). He’s awfully fun to have nearby; one of the many reasons I appreciate having his computer in our main living area.

My feet are up on the arm of the love seat in front of me. Just beyond them, our black lab mix, Max, is snoring lightly. He prefers being near me whenever possible; even better if he can be near me and in a soft space. If I stir, he’ll wake up, but for now, he sleeps peacefully.

Beside me on the couch are two blue yoga balls in a small mesh bag. They are calling me, reminding me that some mobility work will be good for my body, even if I’m not quite done being sick, even if I would rather just sit and read my new book, James by Percival Everett. It’s open and just next to the yoga balls. So far, it is amazing. I finished The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store just in time for book club on Friday night; that one was a slow read for me. Then, yesterday, I read Saffy’s Angel – a middle grade novel recommended by Elisabeth Ellington – because I spent most of the day in bed. It was a great half-sick lie-in-bed read. Last night I started James, and I’m tearing through it – making much faster progress than I did on The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store.

Time’s up.

yr move #SOLC25 17/31

hey

im returning thisessay 2U cuz u haven’t done any of th things i asked like for example u didnt capitalize i & u forgot that u half to use spellcheck and um punctuation cuz this is something u wrote for school also i specifically asked u to, you know, spell words out instead of using txt shorthand again cuz this is for school

yah & how fast can u get it back 2 me cuz i need it for report cards? Sry! I know its late but if u cd be fast that wd be grt. Also ur parents will freak on me if ur marks r low so id rlly appreciate it if u wd do this solid

I no writing formally might seem whack, but trust, its the move – or at least, it’s ur move if u want to level up

yr tchr

Halfway #SOLC25 15/31

Today we are almost halfway through the March Slice of Life Challenge. My family and I are about halfway through this security line, but not yet halfway through our trip home. On paper, my lessons are less than halfway planned for next week, but in my head I’m way past halfway done. I am not even close to halfway done with grading I was supposedly going to do during March Break.

Statistically, I’m more than halfway through my life.

I tend to think of myself as a glass-half-full sort of person, but sometimes I’m glass-half-empty.

I’m really hopeful that the snow we left behind will be more than half gone when we get back. I’m only one third of the way through our bookclub book, and the next meeting is Friday. No problem. (See: glass half full, above.)

I’m starting to slow down on this list, so I’m almost certainly more than halfway through.

I’ve made eye contact with over half of the babies in this line, and played peekaboo with two. I’m half ready to go home, see the pets and sleep in my own bed, and half wishing we could live in Cayman forever. I halfway wish I’d used the washroom before we got in this line.

Some of our clothes were only half dry when we packed them today. Sigh.

We are not even close to halfway through Trump’s second term, but we are more than halfway through the 2020s.

Many people believe that we are living in the beginning of a new era, the Anthropocene, but my family and I are now at the end of the line, so I’m at the end of this post.

Impressions Underwater #SOLC25 13/31

We finished our scuba course today: we now have four certified divers in our family. We loved the diving, but after three days in and out of the water, learning, we were so tired that we all – including the teens! – took a nap.

The sun is slowly setting as I sit on the porch and try to find words for what it was like to experience this part of the planet we live on. Even after the nap, I’m so tired that words just keep swirling around. Our instructor told us that it’s the effects of pressure changes on the body, and he knows more than I do. Either way, I can barely think, so for today I will let words swirl and aim for watercolour impressionism:

Under the blue
Kneel on the white sand and
pass the tiny crab from hand to waiting hand;
watch the clear blue shrimp wave their antennae, safely tucked in
the tentacles of the curly anemone that peeks out from under a shell.
Breathe.
Silver bubbles rise.
Touch the anchor of the wreck –
No rust, but maybe luck, rubs off.
Ascend no faster than your silver bubbles.
Breathe.
Equalize.
Fly from coral mountain peak to coral mountain peak.
Although the deep blue beckons below,
Don’t descend.
Know your limits;
Share your air;
Practice breathing
as the gray sharks swim by and one turns, curious.
Who are you to be in her world?
Hover over a sting ray as she feeds,
disturbing the white sand on which you have knelt
elsewhere
under the deep blue ocean.
Breathe.
Rise with your silver bubbles.