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While many high school English language arts teachers plan to let their students lean on ChatGPT and other generative AI tools to help them brainstorm or to provide feedback on the grammar, vocabulary, and structure of their drafts, Chanea Bond has other plans this school year. 

Recently, the Texas teacher, who is starting her 10th year in the classroom, to her nearly 60,000 followers that she will enforce a strict no-AI-use policy in her classes. Students who break the policy will receive a zero on assignments, 鈥渁nd there will be no exceptions,鈥� Bond said. 

The post was viewed over 100,000 times and caused a bit of a stir. 

鈥淎I can do a lot more than write for your students. Brainstorm, outline, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, tone, feedback,鈥� in response. 鈥淎re you proposing none of these use cases be allowed & = ZERO score?鈥� 

鈥淵es,鈥� Bond replied. 鈥�.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

Bond told me that her policy isn鈥檛 about asking students to bury their heads in the proverbial sand. She鈥檚 more concerned with what her students are learning鈥攐r more often, not learning鈥攂y leaning on AI to help them formulate and write their assignments. 

Bond believes that allowing students to outsource their ideas and rough-draft thinking to AI doesn鈥檛 help them and in fact devalues vital literacy skills like originality, creativity, analysis, and synthesis. 

鈥淭he original ideas are the most important component in a student鈥檚 writing,鈥� Bond told me. 鈥淵ou can polish everything else. But how are you going to polish an idea that you didn鈥檛 originally have, that you didn鈥檛 originally think of, and that you don鈥檛 really have any investment in?鈥�

I spoke to Bond recently about her work as an English teacher, what prompted her to develop her AI ban, and what she makes of the discussion in education circles around her choice. 

ANDREW BORYGA: How long have you been teaching high school English? 

CHANEA BOND: For the last nine years, I鈥檝e taught English to mostly freshmen and sophomores, but this year I鈥檒l be teaching college composition, American literature, and AP Lit to upperclassmen. 

BORYGA: What do you love most about your job? 

BOND: I know it鈥檚 so corny to say, but it鈥檚 the kids. When I first meet students鈥攁nd especially Black and Brown students鈥攁nd they say things like 鈥淚 haven鈥檛 read a book since fourth grade鈥� or 鈥淚 don鈥檛 like to write, I don鈥檛 like to read,鈥� I love creating these moments where they either connect with a text or they start writing these sentences that become these really big ideas, and I can turn to them and say, 鈥淪ee, you鈥檙e a writer, you鈥檙e a reader.鈥�

BORYGA: What are some specific skills you鈥檙e trying to teach your students, particularly when it comes to writing and expressing their own ideas? 

BOND: One big thing is the importance of getting their whole idea down so that they can critically engage with it, before sharing it with others. Things move so fast now that we don鈥檛 even have time to think about the totality of our ideas before they鈥檙e expressed. 

Clarity is key, too. Students need to be able to present their arguments concisely but also think to themselves: Are these words, in this order, what I really want to say? Are there better words I can use that more clearly articulate what I want to say?  

BORYGA: That need for students to articulate their ideas brings me to your AI ban. When did you begin to understand that AI might not be helpful to your goals in the classroom? 

BOND: In the fall of last year, I wrote a paper with my dual-credit American literature students utilizing AI. I was reading all these articles about how AI is inevitable, so I wanted to give it a try in the classroom, with my students. 

I had them take a poem, read it critically, and annotate it, and then I gave them the option of writing their own literary analysis thesis statements or feeding their notes to AI and asking it to write a thesis statement for them. Those that chose the AI option had to use those thesis statements to write their papers鈥攁nd the papers they wrote were really, really bad. 

It was after that experience, and spending the rest of the year reading these AI-written short answer responses, papers, and presentations that students were turning in, that I realized there was a problem鈥攎y students don鈥檛 have the skills necessary to be able to take something they get from AI and make it into something worth reading. I also realized that they鈥檙e not using AI to enhance their work. They are using AI instead of using the skills they鈥檙e supposed to be practicing. So, I decided we鈥檙e not going to use it in the classroom. 

BORYGA: Can you say more about why those papers were so bad? 

BOND: When I modeled the process for them, I knew the poems well enough to be able to look at the responses AI spat out and say, 鈥淣o, the poem isn鈥檛 about this at all.鈥� But my students didn鈥檛 know the poems they were feeding into AI well enough to tell right from wrong. And when they wrote their papers, they didn鈥檛 know the poem well enough, or their literary devices well enough, to take what they got from AI and make it their own. 

I envisioned that AI would provide them with the skeleton of a paper based on their own ideas. But they didn鈥檛 have the ideas鈥攖he analysis component was completely absent. And it makes sense: To analyze your ideas, they must be your ideas in the first place.

The students who didn鈥檛 use AI in that assignment鈥攚hich, for the most part was because they didn鈥檛 want to spend the time figuring it out鈥攖heir papers also needed work, but their ideas were phenomenal. I could tell that they had critically engaged with the text. Seeing the difference between the two versions of the papers was a huge moment for me. 

BORYGA: You write in your new policy that for you to do your job, you must read student writing and know your students鈥� individual voices. How is AI a threat to the development of a young writer鈥檚 voice? 

BOND: In order to be the most authentic version of yourself, you have to know what you want to say. You have to know how you want to say it. 

One of my favorite assignments is to have students compare an author and their work from pre-1865 America to someone who is living. Recently, one student chose an older author and a manga author. It was a unique contrast, but when it came time for his presentation, it was clear that the words on all the slides came from AI. I asked why, and he said he was trying to sound 鈥減rofessional鈥� and 鈥渁cademic.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

I had him get out his outline and deliver the presentation like he was talking about his favorite thing in the world. And it was the best presentation we had all year. He laughed and joked and got really excited. I looked at him and said, 鈥淭hat was you.鈥� I had to explain to him that what he did鈥攁nalyzing these two texts and pulling out very engaging insights for us in his own voice鈥攚as the real 鈥渁cademic鈥� work. 

BORYGA: Many of the educators who disagreed with your policy argued that by not allowing students to engage with AI, you鈥檙e robbing them of an opportunity to use a tool that will shape their lives and careers.

BOND: There are a lot of things we don鈥檛 teach kids how to do that they end up using in their careers. That鈥檚 not my job. My job is to help kids develop foundational skills. Using AI at this point in time is not a foundational skill. If they need it, they will learn it on the job, in a job-specific way鈥攋ust like we are doing right now. 

BORYGA: In the replies of your tweet, you mentioned that you plan to go as far as . Can you explain that decision? 

BOND: If you鈥檝e taught high school students, or know teachers who have, you鈥檒l know that many students struggle with basic things like capitalization or writing in complete sentences. And why is that? I think it鈥檚 because of autocorrect. And I understand. Sometimes, I don鈥檛 even write out an idea completely, or focus on my grammar, because I know it鈥檚 going to be fixed. However, the difference is, I know when a sentence is supposed to be fixed鈥攁nd I know how it鈥檚 supposed to be fixed鈥攂ecause I have learned those skills.

I鈥檝e seen Grammarly tweak a sentence a student has written, and the output will be grammatically correct but different from what the student intended to say. I need them to be able to write a sentence, know what they want to say, and be able to use their brains to fix it. If they can鈥檛 do that on their own, then using a tool that does it for them鈥攅specially when they don鈥檛 have the discernment necessary to evaluate the output of that tool鈥攊sn鈥檛 useful. 

BORYGA: You wrote that to root out the use of AI this school year, you鈥檒l use an 鈥溾�� you鈥檝e developed. Can you share more about what that process entails? 

BOND: I have composition notebooks where students are going to draft everything in class and reflect on their process before I allow them to use a word-processing tool like Google Docs to write their final papers. I鈥檓 going to be writing in class alongside them, too. 

The idea is that all of their initial writing, their outlines, every component that goes into their final drafts, will be written down first. This allows both of us to see and evaluate their ideas first, and then focus on getting those ideas into the final product, and then step back and reflect on the differences, on how did you get from point A to point B?

BORYGA: What will this process look like for, say, the first big essay kids turn in? 

BOND: In my composition course, the first thing kids will write is a personal narrative. We will read three personal narratives, and then the kids will start out by writing about something they know. It can be a memory, an event鈥擨 just want them to write. 

They鈥檒l highlight the parts of their writing they think are important and then think about what鈥檚 missing. We鈥檒l discuss structure and how to put loose ideas together. We鈥檒l also focus on individual sentences. My favorite things in the world are really beautiful, meaningful sentences, and I want them to find those in their own work. What are your anchor sentences, and how do you build on those? What is a sentence doing in relation to others, and how does that create the paragraph? 

It鈥檚 going to be tedious, exhausting, and hard. But it鈥檚 also going to be awesome. Eventually, they鈥檒l create an outline, and after that they can transfer the essay to their computers. In the meantime, I鈥檒l have a chance to get eyes on everything they鈥檙e up to before the paper is written, so nothing is ever really surprising鈥攗nless it is, and that鈥檚 when I get some red flags.

BORYGA: What do you recommend to other teachers out there who are also skeptical of AI and want to limit students using it in their classrooms?  

BOND: I think they need to go back and look at their standards. We need to think about what we鈥檙e responsible for our students learning. And then we need to think about how AI hinders students鈥� ability to do that learning. 

I鈥檝e studied the standards for my district and the state of Texas in depth, and there are very few where AI should be used鈥攅specially if students haven鈥檛 completely mastered a skill. If the standards say kids are supposed to be thinking critically, and they鈥檙e supposed to be drafting and revising, then AI shouldn鈥檛 be doing that for them. So if you鈥檙e a teacher and you鈥檇 like to do something like this and you鈥檙e getting some pushback, I say go back to the standards. 

This interview has been edited for brevity, clarity, and flow.