When Teaching Writing, Real Beats Robot

AI is everywhere.  While teachers definitely have a lot to worry about with AI, there are also so many great ways we can use it.  As someone who is all about simplifying and streamlining, I’m a huge proponent of its use. AI has already cut my workload down tremendously in many ways.  Creating test questions, example (and non-example) summaries, making I can statements, asking it to help us make  our existing lessons stronger, and even scoring parts of writing are all fabulous uses of AI.  But when it comes to teaching writing, real models beat robot-created samples every time. 

Here’s why.

When we ask AI to come up with a text we can use to model writing, we really take away the power of the word “modeling.”  

Modeling means showing how, thinking aloud along the way to uncover how to do something.  It’s a way to “pull back the curtain” of the thinking behind the task.  The thinking aloud part is where the teaching magic is.  

Modeling small, simple things, like how to write a complex sentence, is a great way to leverage AI.  

Before I go any further, I need to clear up my definition of modeling so we’re on the same page.

Modeling is doing the thing (a math problem, writing, spelling, a reading strategy…whatever) in front of kids.  Literally putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).  Showing kids an already-finished thing is providing an example. Both are important, but modeling is the secret sauce to lessons that stick.

For instance, you might display a completed math problem that involves regrouping to point out how the regrouping was done.  In writing, you might show an exemplar, a part of a mentor text, or another student’s writing to point out an example of something.  It’s already done–you’re not showing how to think through how to begin do it; you’re just showing an example of what something looks like when it’s finished.  There’s definitely a place for providing examples in teaching, but it’s different from modeling.  

We can use AI to help simplify things when teaching writing. Here’s where a robot works:

As one example, you might want to show students how to write sentences that contain appositives.  Maybe you also want to use sentences that contain information from your social studies content.  (Which is what The Writing Revolution is all about and an excellent idea). This is a perfect way to use AI.  It will give you a bunch of sentences that you can use to model how appositives work in seconds. This is a low cognitive level thing to teach that’s very straightforward.  There’s pretty much just one way to do it.  

But the writing process, which begins with idea generation, is a much more complex and cognitively demanding thing.  That beginning step–idea generation–is often the hardest part.  It can often feel hard for teachers, too. 

Which makes it really tempting to ask your friend Chat GPT for a text.  

And that’s where teaching writing generated by a robots becomes a very slippery slope.

If we ask AI to come up with stories/information/opinion pieces that we plan to use for modeling, that takes away a huge part of the magic of the model. A very crucial part. 

Why?  Because the hardest part about writing is knowing how to get past the overwhelming feeling of the blank page.  

Of course there’s more involved with writing:  figuring out how to word things, how to best elaborate and where, choosing the most clear language,  etc…but it makes teaching writing really hard and even disingenuous when we try to teach without having lived through the process.  

We will always, always be a far more effective teacher of writing when we ourselves actually write.  

Which means the blank page–and the trepidation that can come with it–is step one.  For students and for us.  

There are many ways to go about getting started.  Not one way, like in teaching something small like appositives, but many ways. 

Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi talk about this in their book Writing Workshop:  The Essential Guide (2001).  They say that “We don’t want to teach our students the writing process; rather, we want each one of them to find a process that works for him or her.”  But they don’t stop there.  These authors go on to say that “Any one-size-fits-all writing process would be not only inaccurate but destructive to students.” 

They’re right. 

We have to be transparent about the messiness of writing.  It’s in that messiness that we also model being flexible and not giving up and being ok with imperfection.  It’s in the modeling that we show students that it’s totally normal to try out a few things, because one thing won’t always work.  We need to pull back the curtain to show all of this–and because all writers face these same challenges, there are many strategies we could try.  

“We are trying to reflect as genuinely as possible the cycle writers go through as they write.” 

Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi, Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide

And then, over time and with each new model,  we explicitly teach those strategies.  

Leaving out the transparency of what it’s like to experience the blank page is like leaving out a key piece in a Jenga tower.  Without this key piece, things might be ok for a bit, but will crumble pretty quickly.

When we ourselves live through—and get through—the struggle—we are far better able to convey how to do that when we teach kids.  This is true for whole and small group instruction,  and especially true when conferring with students.  

When we ourselves go through this process, we become far better equipped to teach different strategies so that our students have the tools they need.  Just as a carpenter cannot begin every job with a hammer, a writer can’t approach the blank page in exactly the same way all the time.  We have to teach them what tools would be most helpful, so that they can then draw upon them when it’s their turn to write.

Another clarification that must be made:

I’m not talking about writing to a prompt here, as in the Think SRSD approach.  That’s a different kind of writing that doesn’t require  idea generation.   It’s also very formulaic, and is therefore one-size-fits-all.  I’m not saying that kind of writing isn’t needed too, but when I talk about teaching writing here,  I’m talking about the kind of writing that begins with the very first steps of the writing process:  idea generation followed by planning.  Not following a formula, as Think SRSD does. 

There’s a big difference.

Idea generation and planning comprise the uppermost strands of Joan Sedita’s Writing Rope, falling under the category of critical thinking.  It’s far more complex than just planning and organizing a response to a prompt about a given text.

It’s big work.  It takes real critical thinking. And it takes guts. 

This will mean that there will be times you yourself will find yourself staring at the blank page in front of kids, genuinely unsure of what to do.  It will mean that you think you have a good idea, try it out, only to realize it falls flat and needs something different.  It will mean that it’ll be messy…and that’s the biggest benefit of teaching writing in this way for kids. 

We need to show kids that the way we approach the blank page isn’t one-size-fits-all.  There’s choice.  The decisions we make to shape our words a certain way are where the voice begins.  When the writer decides how to begin their sentences or pause for impact or elaborate–that’s where the feeling of empowerment comes in.  And that, along with explicit instruction in all the parts of the writing process, including the smaller parts like sentence development, grammar, and conventions, all weave together to create not just competent writers, but confident writers.  

But if we’re not careful, AI can take that all away.  

Using AI to create our texts will rob us of experiencing the blank page and figuring out for ourselves how to begin. Which means it can rob us of understanding what it feels like to face it and get past it.  Which then means even if you memorize how the example from AI will go and do all the physical writing in front of kids, our teaching could all too easily come across as if  writing goes straight from general idea to pretty fleshed out piece with ease.  And that doesn’t set kids up for the reality of the work ahead of them. It obscures the truth that the blank page can be daunting.  

Frankly, it’s disingenuous. 

Asking AI to come up with the texts we’re going to use to “model” isn’t saving time.  It’s cutting corners.  Which will cost you time later, because you’ll have to support kids more and for longer since a crucial piece was missing.  And it’ll lead to kids dreading writing, because it  will remain a mysterious, really hard thing.  They will have gotten the impression that going from blank page to draft is quite simple, which it absolutely is not.

Being transparent about and normalizing the nervousness that comes with the blank page–along with teaching strategies for idea generation and planning–changes everything.  It’s what empowers kids and quells the nerves.  

And it makes you a far better writing teacher.  

Here’s something to know, though.  Even if you only truly model, as I’ve explained here, a few times over the year, you’ll still develop the skills and tools needed to be better at teaching writing.  I know the school days are jam-packed, and I know we have to find ways to save time.  So yeah, go ahead and use AI sometimes.  Just be sure to balance it out with authentic modeling, too.  Teaching writing efficiently and effectively, as with so much in literacy instruction, is all about finding the balance.

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Who is Coach from the Couch?  I’m Michelle, a 25-year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers just like you as I can.  I’ve got more details about who I am and what I’m all about  here.  

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