Since generative AI burst onto the educational scene in 2023, I’ve toyed with a few of the tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. I’ve read articles and research about the use of such tools. I’ve observed the proliferation of AI-based tools online — and articles promoting them, such as:
I’ve even recorded a podcast episode “ChatGPT In English Class: Using AI Writers As Thinking Partners” with Dr. Aimee Myers.
But I’ve been wary.
- What does generative AI mean for me as a writer? As a teacher? As a researcher and a learner?
- What does AI mean for my students?
I have a few thoughts, and they aren’t necessarily in any order. I’m going to resist the urge to write a super organized text like an AI would generate and instead, just drop some thoughts on the page. I’d love to know what you think.
I’m a member in several online communities for English teachers and I’ve noticed two conversations centered on AI:
- What tools can teachers use to save time?
- How can teachers catch students using AI?
Notice the discrepancy?
I know the presence of AI in ELA classrooms is more nuanced than that. So when I noticed that Dr. Jacob Pleasants at the University of Oklahoma was presenting on the topic at this year's Keep Educating Yourself (KEY) conference, I was intrigued.
His presentation, “MagicSchool AI: Labor-saving tech or snake oil?” immediately had my attention, as any good clickbait headline would. So I dropped into his classroom, where his presentation was scheduled right before mine.
He started out talking specifically about MagicSchool.ai, which I had not heard of before. It’s an AI platform that can be used by teachers to create lesson plans, generate worksheets, and provide feedback to students.
I setup an account and asked the AI to create a personal narrative activity using the platform’s lesson plan tool. I told the tool that I wanted the activity to be appropriate for the 10th grade. For the topic, standard or objective, I wrote “I want a collaborative activity for students to brainstorm a personal narrative centered around their favorite place.”
Under additional criteria, I wrote: “Students will work together to generate ideas, but need to have their own narratives.”
I chose “Oklahoma” for the standard set that the lesson needed to align to.
Here is the output it generated, along with some of my thoughts:
Learning Objective: Students will be able to collaboratively brainstorm ideas for a personal narrative centered around their favorite place, developing their narrative skills.
Assessments: Students will submit a written personal narrative that reflects their ideas generated during the collaborative brainstorming session, demonstrating their understanding and application of narrative techniques.
Key Points:
Personal Narrative: A story about a personal experience that includes feelings, thoughts, and details about a specific event or place.
Collaboration: Working together to share ideas and support each other in the writing process.
Narrative Structure: Understanding the components of a narrative (introduction, climax, conclusion) and how to organize their thoughts.
Descriptive Language: Using vivid descriptions to bring the favorite place to life for the reader.
Peer Feedback: Providing constructive feedback to classmates to enhance their narratives.
Already I notice that there is not enough detail or scaffolding. If students have not been taught yet what a narrative is or the elements of a story (which are more complex than just introduction, climax and conclusion) or how to organize their thoughts, then this lesson is going to flop without significant pre-teaching over the course of several days. Also, do the students know what vivid descriptions are? Have they worked on their sensory details (recently)? Do they have any idea how to provide constructive feedback? Have they ever experienced constructive and/or peer feedback in their writing processes?
Opening:
Begin with a brief discussion about favorite places and what makes them special.
Ask students to share their favorite place and one memory associated with it.
Pose the question: "What details make a place memorable?" to engage students.
As a veteran teacher, I know how to engage students in these kinds of conversations. But would a newer teacher know what to do if crickets chirp instead of students talking? What if all the students try to talk at once? What if one or more students can’t think of a favorite place? I do appreciate the “What details make a place memorable?” questions because memorable doesn’t necessarily mean best or favorite or even pleasant.
Introduction to New Material:
Explain the concept of a personal narrative and its elements.
Discuss the importance of collaboration in brainstorming and how it can enhance creativity.
Introduce the narrative structure and the role of descriptive language.
Anticipate a misconception: Some students may think that a personal narrative must be a chronological retelling; clarify that it can also focus on specific moments and feelings.
Immediately, I noticed that these instructions are very teacher-centric. Students will be sitting and listening (or not paying attention at all) while the teacher talks. I think it would be better to provide mentor texts for students to read in groups, annotate, and then talk about the narrative elements they notice. This way, students are doing the work, not the teacher. And students will often surprise you by noticing things you would not have.
The “importance of collaboration” discussion is another one that I think could fall short of helping students actually understand. If students have been taught how to engage in collaborative work before, then a discussion activating their prior knowledge could work. But if students have mostly completed worksheets, taken multiple choice tests, and listened to lectures, then they are not going to have any idea how to enact collaboration. The teacher will need to demonstrate what this looks like and provide students with opportunities to practice.
As a veteran teacher, I would introduce narrative structure by having students read a mentor text written by me or another student and reverse engineer its structure in their writing groups. I’d have them identify the descriptive language in that mentor text.
As students reverse-engineered the structure and talked about the descriptive writing, I would check in with each group and ask what they were discovering and what questions they would have. That would enable me to discover what actual misconceptions they had, instead of just hallucinating one with the AI tool.
Guided Practice:
Divide students into small groups to discuss their favorite places.
Provide guiding questions to help them explore: "What sensory details can you remember?" and "What emotions do you associate with this place?"
Monitor group discussions, providing support and prompting deeper thinking when needed.
This section isn’t bad and does address some of the thoughts I had above. However, it skips the mentor text step. I think after students have a chance to enjoy and annotate another text, then they can work on discussing their favorite places, which I’ll talk about more in later in this article. I also think students need to write down their thoughts before they start sharing. (After the pre-teaching we would have done, students should have some ideas. I will also have already told them that the goal is to eventually write about their own favorite place, so they should be thinking of one or more as we go through the lesson.)
Independent Practice:
Have students draft their personal narratives based on the ideas generated in their groups.
Set behavioral expectations: Focus on writing independently, but encourage them to reference their group discussions.
Require that students include descriptive language and narrative structure in their drafts.
The order in which the AI generated these instructions is weird. The teacher needs to set behavioral expectations first — at the very beginning of the unit. And since students already know how to behave, asking them to create the list of expectations as a whole class will establish more buy-in upfront. One of the teachers I worked with recently did this by creating a chart on a large sticky note in her room and students added their ideas to what behavior is considered respectful and what is not. I could tell they really knew themselves.
I recently designed a creative writing curriculum and coaching program, which Mrs. Johnson allowed me to test in her classroom. Here, her had students generated this list of behavior expectations for use during a lesson involving stations in a sophomore honors English class.
The last line, “require students to include descriptive language and narrative structure” in their drafts seems both vague and harsh, particularly for a first draft. I think it would be better to encourage students to use the descriptive language they generated in their discussions and write a story that uses all the necessary elements of narrative: character, plot (including conflict) setting, and theme. I also think that in the early stages of the writing process, it might be best to allow students to work in groups or partners. So if they’re struggling to find a word, or aren’t sure if they understand what “exposition” is, they have someone to ask. Also, it’s important to let students know that it’s okay if the first draft is a chaotic mess. We’re not looking for perfection, but for a start.
Closing:
Host a brief sharing session where students can read a paragraph from their narratives.
Encourage classmates to give positive feedback and one suggestion for improvement.
I love the idea of sharing — though I’m sure these early narratives will be short enough that if an entire class period is dedicated, everyone should be able to share their whole story. I have also worked with a teacher who encourages her students to provide “glows and grows” from their perspective as a reader or listener.
Extension Activity:
For students who finish early, have them create a visual representation (such as a drawing or collage) of their favorite place to accompany their written narrative.
I do appreciate the idea of creating a visual representation of their favorite place. Although, my colleague and I have developed a lesson plan that will take this one step further using photography. I’ll explain more later in this article.
Homework:
Ask students to revise their narratives based on peer feedback and to prepare a final draft for submission.
I do not give homework at the middle or high school levels because students are not in charge of their home environments or schedules and may not have the time or resources to complete homework. So I plan for revision time in class. Also, I have created writing groups and a writing center in high schools for students to attend to ask for additional help from either me or trained peers.
Standards Aligned:
Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts:
Writing 10.1: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Speaking and Listening 10.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners.
Perhaps I’m being pedantic, but this is not exactly what the 2021 Oklahoma Academic Standards for English Language Arts Grade 10 says. Also, the numerical reference isn’t correct. Here is what the OAS-ELA says for 10th grade:
Writing: 10.3.W.1: Students will compose narratives reflecting real or imagined experiences that:
include engaging plots involving well-developed, complex characters resolving conflicts
establish narrator(s) that enhance(s) the narrative
are intentionally sequenced in a way to achieve a specific effect
provide clear descriptions, using precise language, sensory details, and dialogue
include varied syntax to enhance readability
emulate literary elements and/or literary devices from mentor texts
As you can see, the OAS-ELA are more detailed and ask for students to complete a more complex task than what this lesson requires. The lesson does not address conflict resolution in a story, how to create a narrator, how to achieve a specific effect (What effect?) through intentional sequencing of a narrative, how to write dialogue, how to vary syntax, or how to “emulate literary elements and/or literary devices from mentor texts.”
MagicSchool’s summary of the speaking and listening standards does seem to be fairly accurate, but again, it’s just a summary. The OAS are more detailed.
Thoughts on AI tools in the ELA classroom
After we played with MagicSchool, Dr. Pleasants discussed the potential drawbacks of AI in education, such as the possibility of bias, the importance of human judgment, and the need to protect student privacy. He emphasizes that AI should be seen as a tool to supplement human teachers, not replace them.
The teachers in the presentation mentioned some of the other tools they use, such as Canva AI, Animaker, and Echo Frames.
I mentioned that I’ve noticed some teachers embracing AI tools while others are still hunting for the perfect AI detector to catch students. Pleasants suggested that teachers should be transparent with their students about their use of AI and teach students how to use AI responsibly.
We also talked about the impact of AI — and technology in general — on education. For example, PowerSchool and other tools were touted as saving time for teachers. But now, schools expect us to have two grades in the system every week and parents want us to grade all assignments now, not when we have time. It seems that whenever society creates a way for tasks to become easier — expectations shift so that we don’t actually save time or effort.
What do you think?
After my foray into generating an AI narrative writing lesson, I headed to the classroom where my colleague, Mrs. Johnson, and I gave our presentation on “Bridging Rural Landscapes and Student Voices.” We’ve given this presentation before, which is based on our work in place-based and writing center pedagogies. We ask teachers to imagine inspiring their students with the fields and communities around them, crafting compelling narratives, poems, and essays that resonate with authenticity and confidence.
This time, we provided some additional context: Generative AI is altering how we teach writing and raising complex ethical questions around academic integrity and the potential for widening already existing inequities.
Then we provided teachers with a student-written poem written about a photograph the same student took of a place on campus to which she had a complex emotional connection. You can see the photograph on the cover of the 2024 Oklahoma English Journal at the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English website. If you’re a member of OKCTE, you can also read the poem, “The Track That Holds Memories,” which was published in this issue of the OEJ.
We encouraged participants to write what they noticed as they listened to the poem and viewed the photograph, then discuss the poet’s use of language and form with a partner. Then we had teachers find a photograph on their phone of a place that meant something to them and complete a five-minute quick write about that place using imagery and other techniques they noticed in the mentor text.
Mrs. Johnson and I presented our research into rurality, place-based pedagogies, Graham’s (2018) writers-within-community model, and writing center pedagogies, which we kept short and to the point. Throughout our session, I noticed participants talking with each other, including people they’d just met that day, about the place that was special to them, sharing their places with each other and with the whole group.
I provided strategic questions for helping participants revise their work, and then provided time for them to work with a peer to determine what could be revised. What did they like the most about their writing and what changes had they already made? What is their goal for the text? Does the text meet the assignment requirements?
The teachers again talked and wrote. I could tell from my vantage point that they were engaged in the writing. Of course, I realize that they are teachers, and adults, that this process would look different in a classroom. However, it’s one that we have tried in multiple classrooms, from middle school all the way to graduate students in their master’s degree programs. With adjustments, and attention to the needs of students, it’s an authentic activity that students can lean into at whatever skill level they inhabit — and grow from there.
At the end, we asked: To what extent does the use of generative AI impact student learning and community?
I think we all agree that this writing activity would have been completely different if I had generated the lesson using AI — or encouraged students to use AI during their writing process.
While I”m not saying that we should ban AI completely (because, as with the calculator, personal computer, and smartphone, it’s most likely here to stay), I do think we should be intentional in giving students every chance possible to write with and trust their humanity.