Student Agency and AI Tools: Leveraging AI for Writing Mini-series

Catch up quick

Sara, Leah, and I presented on AI in Denver at the Colorado Reading Conference a few weeks ago. We had so much to say about it that we planned a three-part mini-series. Leah kicked it off with a post about how teachers can use AI tools for planning and preparing for units. Sara kept it going last week with a post about creating demonstration pieces and providing feedback. Today, I completed the series thinking about ways to shift agency from teachers to students. 

Why It Matters

I’ve been saying for some time now that students are growing up in a rapidly changing world, but buckle up… the development of AI tools seems faster than ever. In a recent conversation I had with a parent, we talked about when and how to introduce AI tools to her child, a fifth-grader with great ideas and many challenges with spelling and fluency. The emerging tools make writing much easier for him, and they’re not going away. If there’s a hammer lying around, would I bang a nail in with my hand? Not if I know how to use a hammer! We agreed that our focus in individual sessions would be on teaching T. to use technology intentionally and responsibly. 

A Case Study

T. has been a case-study in ways that AI can work for students. I’m not saying that all students should follow this pathway, but it’s an alternative way to hike up the writing mountain when students need different trails. He is a fifth-grader and a strong reader, listener, and speaker. He is also curious, reflective, and responsive. Writing has been a challenge for T., and he is one of those writers who spends an inordinate amount of time debating how to spell words like “very”. Then, understandably, regaining his train of thought is hard.

I started by introducing T. to Chat GPT, or so I thought. As it turned out, he already knew a lot about Chat. He’d already played with many prompts. Since we were working on an opinion essay, I suggested asking Chat to write a paragraph about why we should have driverless cars. We were both impressed with Chat’s paragraph. 

“Can you read that?” I asked. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“Does is sound like something you’d write?”

“No,” he said. 

I suggested a revised request from Chat, and he prompted it to write the paragraph more like a fifth-grader. 

“Now?” I asked. 

A grin spread across his face. 

“Yes,” he said. 

Another Tool

Simultaneously, I had been working with T. using another student-facing AI tool which is now a part of Newsela. EverWrite is currently a Google extension that will soon be available for all platforms, and it provides real-time feedback to students on both paragraphs and essays. Students can access a checklist that is aligned to state rubrics, as well as a series of dials that move when students include specific parts of the paragraph or essay. I have used EverWrite with many students, and it is extremely effective, especially for writers who have to work harder than others on sentence structure, conventions, and organization.

EverWrite uses a sentence checklist and rubric meters to provide feedback to students in real time.

EverWrite looks for a clear and predictable paragraph structure: thesis, background information, text evidence, analysis, and a concluding statement. (If you’re interested in getting started with this platform, here are directions, and I’ll be writing more about it soon. This post is a tip of the iceberg– almost a teaser– of the ways you can use EverWrite with students.)

T. took his paragraph and used the EverWrite extension. Realizing that he didn’t have evidence, he added some. Additionally, EverWrite was looking for a clearer thesis statement and stronger transitional language, so he revised the piece. At that point, I taught him that the first thing he had to do was make sure that he and EverWrite agreed on his thesis statement since that would dictate how the rest of his paragraph could be interpreted by a non-human “brain.” (We also talked about what we meant by the word brain.)

In a different session, and with a different piece, I taught T. to personalize whatever he wrote with his own language stems and personal stories. Together we created a checklist for paragraph writing with AI partners.

And Then What? 

I continue to work with T., and he now decides when and how to use the AI tools at his disposal. Chat GPT provides him with a starting point–in his words– that he can revise and personalize. As for EverWrite, he thinks it’s still really fun, and, as he said, I don’t need it because “I have the checklist in my brain.”

Final Thoughts

All of these tools we have shared in this mini-series are evolving quickly and can make us more efficient and maybe even more effective. But they are powerful tools, and powerful tools can produce great results and great damage. More and more, I’m working to use them effectively and teach about them responsibly.

Students– and all of us– are not only consumers of potentially biased and incorrect information, but also creators. As a writing teacher, my role is shifting as new tools emerge. My hope is that students in my reach learn how to write and also learn the strengths and limitations of the tools that can help them create now and in the future.