What makes an in-class writing assignment hard to outsource to AI?

Three things, in order of how much they help. First, the prompt is revealed in the room on the day, so nobody has had a week to prepare an answer. Second, the writing is anchored to something only the people in that room have — a passage annotated together, a class discussion, a specific lab result, a personal stake. Third, the drafting itself is recorded, so the evidence of authorship is produced automatically rather than argued about afterwards. Blocking paste helps, but design does more work than blocking does.

How do I run a timed in-class draft on Chromebooks without student accounts?

Use a tool that works from a link. Create the assignment, put the student link in Classroom or on the board as a short URL, and students open it, type a name, and start writing. No sign-in, no install, no app store. Set the time limit when you create the assignment so it submits automatically, tell the class what is being recorded before they start, and keep a paper fallback for the one Chromebook that will not connect. The whole setup takes about a minute of class time.

Is blocking paste enough to stop AI use in class?

No, and it should not be sold as enough. A student can retype text from a phone, and blocked paste does nothing about that. What blocking does is remove the frictionless path and make the remaining path visible: retyping takes time, produces an unusually even cadence, and usually comes with the window losing focus repeatedly. Combine it with a prompt revealed on the day and a record of the drafting, and the assignment stops depending on any single defence.

In-class writing assignments that can't be pasted

The assignments that hold up are not the ones with the cleverest anti-AI trick. They are the ones where the answer does not exist anywhere until the room makes it, and where the drafting leaves a record. Six designs, each runnable in one period, and the practical bit about doing it on Chromebooks with no student accounts.

1. The timed first draft

The plain version, and the one most teachers land on. Reading and annotation are homework. The prompt is revealed at the start of the period, students write for 30 to 40 minutes in one sitting, and the draft submits itself when the clock runs out. Grade it as a draft — thinking, structure, use of evidence — not as a polished final piece, because it is not one.

What makes it work is the reveal, not the timer. A prompt shared in advance is a prompt a chatbot has also had in advance. Keep the unit and the text public; keep the actual question for the day.

2. Staged prompts

Break the period into three short writes with the next question hidden until the previous one is submitted. Ten minutes on the claim. Then a complication you hand out only after: "your strongest opponent has just said X — answer them." Then five minutes on what you would need to know to settle it.

Each stage is short enough to write honestly under time, and the sequence cannot be answered in advance because stage three depends on what the student wrote in stage one. This is also the design that produces the best classroom discussion afterwards, which is a nice side effect of an integrity measure.

3. Reflect and revise

Students bring a take-home draft, written however they like. In class they get the draft back and 25 minutes to do one thing to it: strengthen the weakest paragraph, cut 20%, or answer a specific objection you supply on the day. Then five minutes of writing about what they changed and why.

You are assessing the revision and the reflection, both of which happened in the room. A student who did not write the original draft has a very hard time explaining why its second paragraph is the weak one. This is the gentlest design on the list — nobody is accused of anything, and the assignment simply moves the graded part to where you can see it.

4. Source in the room

Anchor the writing to material that only exists in your class. The passage you annotated together on Tuesday, with the three margin notes the class actually made. Yesterday's lab numbers. A one-page primary source you hand out on paper. A quote from the discussion, attributed to a classmate.

Generic prompts get generic answers from anywhere. "Using the two objections Marcus raised in Tuesday's discussion, argue against your own thesis" cannot be answered by anything that was not in the room.

5. The live-writing session

Everyone writes at the same time on the same link, and you watch the class list fill in from your dashboard while it happens. Sessions appear as students join; you can see who has started and who is stuck at zero words twelve minutes in, which is usually a teaching signal rather than an integrity one.

Run it as a shared event: two minutes of silence to plan, a hard start, one mid-point interruption where everyone reads their last sentence back, then finish. Students report that the visible shared clock is what keeps them writing.

6. The exit draft

Ten minutes at the end of a lesson, one question, submitted before anyone leaves. Not a formal essay — an argued paragraph. Do it weekly and you accumulate a baseline of how each student writes under observation, which turns out to be the most useful thing on this page. When a take-home essay later reads like it came from somewhere else, you are not comparing it to your impression; you are comparing it to eight timed paragraphs by the same student.

It is also the cheapest to run. Ten minutes, no marking beyond a tick and a comment, and after a month you know your class's writing better than any tool could tell you.

Running it with a link-only tool

Create the assignment before the bell. A title is enough. If you want a prompt, a time limit or a due lock, use the full form; it is still under a minute.
Put the student link where the class already looks. The Classroom stream, the board, a projected QR code. Students open it, type a name, and write — no sign-in, no install, no app store, works on a Chromebook, an iPad or a phone.
Say what is recorded, out loud, once. "Paste is blocked and counted, the timing of your typing is recorded, and I can watch a replay." Teachers consistently report this sentence does more than any detector, because the students who were going to paste simply do not.
Start together. Reveal the prompt, set the timer visibly, and write with them if you can.
Have a paper fallback. One device will not connect. Nothing in this design should collapse because of that.
Afterwards, look at the class table, not every replay. Sort by anything unusual, open the two sessions that look odd, and leave the rest alone.

Where WrittenLive fits

WrittenLive is the recording part of these designs and nothing else. You type a title and get two links: one for students, one private dashboard for you, with no accounts on either side. Paste, drop and drag-in are blocked and counted. Every insert, delete, cursor jump, focus change and idle gap is timestamped, so you get a scrubbable keystroke replay, a class table with the sessions worth a look marked, a CSV, and a one-page printable authorship report per student. Optional time limits and due locks handle the timed designs above; the paste-proof assignment guide covers the device mechanics in more detail.

There is no model in it judging whether writing sounds like AI, and it never claims to detect anything. It records the process and plays it back; the teaching decisions stay with you.

The limits, said plainly

Blocking paste does not stop a determined student retyping from a phone, and no assignment design on this page is a guarantee. Timed writing genuinely disadvantages some students — processing speed, anxiety, and English-learner writers all need accommodation, and if a design makes a student's normal supports impossible, the design is wrong, not the student. In-class writing also costs class time you were using for something else; the exit draft is on this list partly because it is the cheapest version. Treat any of this as a way to see the work happen, not as surveillance you have to defend to your class — say what is recorded, say why, and it stops being a fight.

Made by a developer after teachers asked for it. I am not a teacher; these designs came from teachers describing what already works for them, and the tool exists because the recording step needed something nobody could name. Free for one class this school year, no card anywhere in the product.

Set one up for tomorrow

Or try it as a student first — it takes ten seconds and no account: open the demo.