The persuasive presentation used to be such a reliable homework task for junior secondary school students. Because students are familiar with persuasive writing from early primary school, it’s a text type that we can reasonably expect them to be able to independently draft and polish on their own after some initial scaffolding and support in class. This then leaves valuable class time for other things.
But… AI.
All of you have either directly experienced students getting AI to do writing tasks for them or heard about cases of this occurring in other schools. And persuasive writing is a particularly easy form of writing for AI to produce.
One of the opportunities this problem presents is the chance to reframe the writing tasks students do as more personal, ‘uncheatable’ tasks. So, for a persuasive presentation unit, for example, rather than simply setting students the task of writing a standard persuasive piece on an issue, the task could be to personally reflect on what they have learnt about the issue, how it applies to them personally and what they think should be done (see the example in the accompanying image).
Of course, AI can produce personal writing, but it cannot produce localised personal writing. It cannot write about the actual experiences, observations and feelings a student has had in the specific place they occupy. This is where personal and reflective tasks become ‘uncheatable’—by challenging students to reflect on details, experiences and insights that AI cannot possibly know.
Our 2026 Junior Issues Pack includes an annotated and scaffolded personal persuasive task like the one attached, which you can use as a starting point for renewing and refreshing your approach to persuasive writing in the junior years.
