Are your elemetary students using GenAI for writing? ⚙️ Show them how to use it responsibly 🫡

We live in a world where using AI has become increasingly common. According to research, "30% of K-12 students use AI tools at least once per day."

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You need to learn how to teach students to use this technology in a responsible way. By using AI to help with brainstorming, drafting, and revising their work, your students will become even better at writing.

As your students reach higher grades in elementary school, writing work becomes more like writing an essay, so it will be tempting for your students to use AI. However, only using AI to produce their written work will rob them of critical skills that are valuable for their future.

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Writing one essay isn't the end goal for you as a teacher, but it gives your students skills that they can use for their whole lives.

• Writing supports learning. The fact that your students have to write helps themgain a deeper understanding of the topic.

• Writing supports critical thinking. Asyour students write, they'll form their own opinions about what is important.

• Writing improves reading. When your students write, they improve their reading skills and word recognition.

• Writing shows learning. When your students write, it lets you see how well they understand the material.

Writing gives students three essential skills for life.

1. Becoming better at thinking. It doesn't matter how little writing you do as an adult. The more you know about writing, the better you become at analysis and thinking.

2. Being able to communicate effectively. Writing is still the best way to make your argument. Your students need to be clear, connect ideas, and be persuasive.

3. AI can't write some things as well as a person. There are many things your students will write in the future based on their own experiences, such as cover letters. If they don't know how to write these kinds of texts, then they may miss out to students who have learnt to write.

Your students will gain many advantages by writing on their own rather than relying on AI. As a teacher, your challenge is to fit these skills alongside AI to give your students the best of both worlds.

One of the hardest things for many students is to plan their own work, as this can often feel overwhelming for them. AI is a valuable tool to help your students get their thoughts out. Using AI to brainstorm can help them organize their work and write a better essay.

AI can be a brainstorming partner.

AI can help your students come up with unique ideas and gain a unique perspective.

Tell your students to enter the prompt: "I want to write an essay on ________ . Ask me five questions to work out my thesis statement."

Students can use AI to organize notes.

Your students can use AI to quickly put their notes in order.

Tell them to enter the prompt: "Arrange these notes by theme."

Help your students get the best out of using AI to plan their work.

Before using AI, give your students a few minutes to think about the topic and brainstorm it by themselves. This allows them to build from what they already know.

After using AI, get your students to read the response and talk to you about it. Make sure they understand and are happy with what AI has given them.

You're a Grade 5 teacher. You've noticed that your student Sarah is struggling to start her essay on Christopher Columbus.

Which of the following prompts would be good for you to suggest to Sarah to use?

A. Tell me Christopher Columbus's life story.

B. Write a 500-word essay on the reasons that Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.

C. I want to write an essay on Christopher Columbus. Ask me five questions so I can work out what my thesis statement should be.

D. Organize my notes by date and importance so I can write an essay on Christopher Columbus.

One of the best ways AI can help your students is by providing meaningful feedback and allowing them to make improvements to their work. AI can improve your students' work by finding the mistakes for them so they can make the necessary changes.

Use AI to find mistakes.

One way that AI can help your students is to find their mistakes.

Tell your students to enter the prompt: "Tell me three places my evidence doesn't match the topic sentence."

Then, they can enter this prompt: "Tell me three places my tone changes."

Have AI read their work to them.

An AI text-to-speech tool can read out exactly what is written. Hearing it read will allow your students to easily find missing words, awkwardly phrased sentences, and where their work isn't clearly explained.

How to get the best out of using AI to revise written work.

First get the students to read their own work and see if they can find any mistakes by themselves. Then allow your students to use AI to look at what they have written.

After your students have written their first draft, AI can be a valuable tool in helping them to improve their work. It can help your students draft their work to sound even better than if they wrote it themselves.

AI can help with sentence variety.

One of the challenges many students face is writing in varied styles.

Tell your students to enter the following prompt: "Rewrite this paragraph with a mix of short and long sentences, but keep the original vocabulary."

AI can provide alternative phrasing.

Another challenge many students face is phrasing things in the most appropriate way.

Tell your students to highlight a sentence that doesn't sound right, then enter this prompt: "Give three different ways to say that sentence." This allows your students to choose a better way to say something.

How your students can get the best out of AI to draft their work.

Start by getting students to read their own work and ask them to see if there is anything they want to change. Ask them why they want to change it.

After students have used AI, ask them what they changed and why. Tell them it's OK to not make the AI's suggested changes if they don't feel they're the right ones.

You're teaching a student whose first language isn't English. They often make many grammatical mistakes in their written work and don't always choose the most appropriate way to phrase things. How can you help your student use AI to improve their written work?

A. Tell your student to enter the prompt: "Rewrite this work as a native English speaker would phrase it."

B. Have your student use text-to-speech software so they can hear exactly what is written and find some of their mistakes.

C. Tell your student to enter the prompt: "Find the most common grammatical mistakes in this essay."

D. Tell your student to highlight a sentence, then enter the prompt: "Is this sentence OK?"

AI is a tool that, if used the right way — not just to generate an entire essay — will allow your students to produce better written work. It can enhance the skills your students already have.

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