Teaching Writing and Artificial Intelligence: Can the Two Coexist?

I have been teaching students how to read, write, and communicate for 26 years. I am a middle school teacher and have taught fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. I always spend time teaching about plagiarism and why it is wrong, and every year, I have one or two incidents where I catch students plagiarizing and they (and sometimes their families) have had to learn some painful lessons. But this past year, the number of students who discovered generative AI tools and used them to cheat shot through the roof.

I teach sixth grade, so it’s pretty obvious when a student uses an AI generator to complete an assignment. When they can’t write a decent paragraph but then suddenly compose 5-paragraph essays using advanced vocabulary and beautiful transitions, it’s pretty hard to hide. AI writing is only as good as the prompt given and can be very formulaic. And just like there are a million AI generators out there, there are a million and one AI detectors (and experienced teachers with really good spidey-senses) that can help identify writing that has been generated by AI. When told a parent that her typical sixth grader’s writing suddenly became like a college professor’s, I got a big laugh! It was obvious to both of us that was not her son’s writing.

I haven’t had any lashback (yet) from parents when I reached out to explain to them that their children were cheating using AI-generators…it was glaringly obvious. But I did have one child who continued to insist that using an AI generator is not wrong. And he had done his research! There are a ton of sources out there that laud the uses of AI in education, and I don’t always disagree. There are some amazing uses of AI tools, generative and others, that can help make our work much smoother and eliminate tedious tasks so that our brains can focus on being more creative. Heck, my second job is a photographer, and I am LOVING the new generative fill and expand features in the Adobe products to help me eliminate distractions and create more beautiful images! But I already know how to edit “the old fashioned way,” so I am grounded in understanding in how to use those features most effectively to enhance my work. I can also identify when something looks unrealistic, which I always avoid. So when young writers who don’t have the basic skills of writing, research, and proper citation of sources use AI generators to do their research and writing (and ultimately their thinking) for them, that’s where we’ve gone too far.

When children are learning how to write and communicate, the use of AI writing generators is hugely detrimental to their cognitive and academic development. How can they learn to identify credible sources, synthesize information, organize an argument, or communicate clearly if they are relying on a tool to do all of those things for them? And these are not just academic skills; these are life skills.

I know there are tools that can help students become better writers (if they thoroughly analyze and reflect on how the finished product is different from their input), but most middle schoolers are not mature enough to use those tools appropriately. And unfortunately, there are social media advertisements coming from AI generative companies that are flat out encouraging students to cheat! It’s baffling to me that our society even allows that; we don’t allow commercials for cigarettes anymore because we know how dangerous smoking is for our health, but AI generators are advertising cheating as if it is a normal work habit. This is a dangerous mindset for students to adopt!

This summer, I was invited to be a part of a team for our school district to begin discussing AI’s impact on our students and develop some policies and procedures that we can start using to teach our students about the proper and ethical use of AI. It was one of the most productive conversations I have ever been a part of, and I felt like everyone in the room was on the same page! There were teachers, counselors, principals, assistant principals, elementary, middle, and high school representatives in the room, and we all had very similar concerns. We put our heads together and began coming up with general policies and a “scale” that can be applied to any assignment, including AI-free, AI-Assisted, AI-Partnered, and AI-Empowered. And guess what? Most elementary and middle school assignments have to be AI-free because students are not allowed to use most AI tools until they are at least 13 years old. The district team also discussed ways to be proactive and start teaching about AI so that we can get ahead of all the potential issues to educate our students about ethical and appropriate use of AI. As we educate students how to use these tools most effectively, they will learn how to use AI to enhance their work, which will ultimately make them more employable in this ever-changing world of advancing technology and tech-based careers.

So to answer the question in the title: can teaching writing and AI coexist? Yes, but when done with care and acceptance of how a child’s brain and learning develop. I am absolutely thrilled about the guidelines that were produced by our district and am much more hopeful about the upcoming school year. Yes, we know there will be students who will violate these policies and that we will still have concerns to mitigate, but at least now, we have a plan!

What have your experiences been like with AI in schools? I’d love to hear your perspective! Drop me a comment below!