Work rooted in your specific classroom is hard to outsource. Tie assignments to a discussion that happened last week, a guest speaker, a field trip, a lab the class ran, or a current event you covered together. Ask students to connect a concept to their own experience, goals, or observations, with enough specificity that a generic answer would stand out.

Local and personal anchoring is not about catching anyone. It changes what a good answer looks like, so that an answer disconnected from the class reads as off the mark on its own terms. It also tends to produce more meaningful work, because students are reasoning about something real to them rather than performing for a rubric.