When teaching students to write important work like college essays or cover letters educators should be wary of the use of artificial intelligence, according to an article in K-12 Dive.
Students need to develop skills to talk about their experiences, put them into perspective and think about their contributions, says Kate Vieira, professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education. “The use of generative AI is kind of threatening the ‘personal’ in the personal essay,” she says.
“One of the things that generative AI really threatens is something that’s so essential to developing skills as a writer: being able to sit in discomfort, to face the blank page and not know how it’s going to turn out. To sit with a bad draft and have to think about how to make it better,” Vieira says.
Writing is a heavy cognitive activity, she says. It is intensive and takes time to develop.
Concern about AI use in resumes and cover letters has businesses requiring on-the-spot written tasks during a job interview, Vieira says. “Critical thinking, and communicating to an audience, using the correct tone … those are built into writing. It takes maturity to develop.”
Low-stakes, frequent, ungraded, in-class writing assignments can help students build habits of mind and practice, Vieira says. It also presents the opportunity to share writing with interested readers — typically peers rather than the teacher.
“Students are often writing to a teacher who, by definition, knows more than they do,” she says. “That’s not very empowering.”
Karoline Trepper, clinical assistant professor of English education at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, suggests a method called contrasting cases. Rather than telling students “here’s what you need to include” in an assignment, give multiple examples of how different writers use their style and substance.
“Can you rank them from most effective to least effective, from most compelling narrative voice to least compelling voice?” she says. “What is it about that piece that makes it more or less effective for you?”
With cover letters, teachers can present several examples and ask students, “Who would you interview first?” Trepper says. With a personal essay, the question would be, “If you were sitting on a hiring or admissions committee, who would be the most compelling?”
When finished writing their own piece, teachers need to provide in-class opportunities for actionable feedback that students can infuse.
“I’ve seen teachers include a line in their rubric about incorporating feedback into the revision,” she says. “In order for teachers to do that, they need to provide the space and time. That develops students’ confidence. Students feel as if they can write something, and it’s OK if it’s not perfect.”
K-12 Dive
