What Does It Mean to “Use” AI?

What we talk about when we talk about using AI

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The Important Work is a space for writing instructors at all levels—high school, college, and beyond—to share reflections about teaching writing in the era of generative AI.

This week’s post is by Brett Vogelsinger, a high school English teacher in Pennsylvania. Brett’s new book, Artful AI in Writing Instruction: A Human-Centered Approach to Artificial Intelligence in Grades 6-12 investigates how teachers can carefully weigh the inclusion of AI tools at different stages of the writing process. It includes interviews with teachers and students as well as use-tomorrow lessons to help guide classrooms through this new landscape to artful results and stronger writers. You can learn more about Brett’s work on his website.

If you’re interested in sharing a reflection for The Important Work, you can find all the information here. —Jane Rosenzweig

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Whenever I discuss AI with colleagues, the verb “use” shows up a lot. This verb pops up a lot in articles about AI and education as well Some argue teachers should “use AI” in the name of efficiency. Others argue students should never “use AI” or talk about how frequently students “use AI” to cheat instead of thinking through the assignments themselves.

But what it means to “use AI” for teacher lesson planning or student essays varies wildly. Details matter when we consider what it means to “use” any technology.

To illustrate, many reading this post “use” social media. This simple verb includes the people who occasionally graze over the family photos their distant friends post on Instagram and those who are addicted to scrolling, neglecting sleep to feed their habit. But the implications of those two uses are different.

Likewise, there are teachers and students who may wish to sidestep the intellectual process of lesson planning or essay writing, and others who want a nudge toward more creativity or wordsmithing and turn to AI for assistance.

When we talk about what it means to “use AI,” we should consider context, timing, magnitude, and reflection. In my high school English classroom, I find that thinking and talking about these facets of “use” with students have helped to determine whether specific AI scenarios are damaging or helpful.

Photo by Nedim on Unsplash

Context

A recent graduate stopped by to visit my creative writing class this year and show the poetry chapbook he created in college. It was a beautiful visit, filled with his words of wisdom about college and creativity.

Later, we talked about AI, and his first thoughts involved context. “I would never use it for this type of writing,” he said, gesturing toward his poetry. “But you know when I love it? When I’m listing something on eBay. It writes an AI description for what I’m selling. I read it, tweak it, add any details that make the item sound better, and move on with my day.”

If we want our students to stay away from AI during classwork, we must first make sure the assignments feel more meaningful and heartfelt than an eBay post. Teachers must assign writing that feels authentically human, more like poetry, engaging real audiences and valuing our human quirks.

As author and educator John Spencer puts it, “In the future, our students will need to become really good at what AI can’t do (empathy, contextual understanding, curiosity) and really different at what AI can do (divergent thinking, individual voice).” Our assignments can create contexts that align with this reality.

Magnitude

Several colleagues, masters of the generous art of writing letters of recommendation, were offended to hear that other teachers around our school were “using AI” to write those letters.

Consider though how the magnitude of the use matters:

• Scenario A: A teacher feeds a student’s resume to ChatGPT and asks it to create a one-page letter of recommendation in a professional tone. The teacher sends the letter.

• Scenario B: A teacher uses voice-to-text to capture a rambling account of what makes the student great, including a few anecdotes from their time in class together. The teacher asks ChatGPT to organize this content into an outline for a letter. The teacher then writes the letter in their own words.

Both teachers “use AI,” but the magnitude of the use in Scenario A makes the whole process feel clinical and cold, resulting in a letter that will feel the same. Scenario B minimizes AI use intentionally and integrates human warmth and technological efficiency into the writing process.

Students enjoy learning more nuanced uses for generative AI. If we guide them and talk about boundaries, they can avoid uses that circumvent the need to think.

Timing

Prompting AI to brainstorm writing topics deprives a student of the struggle and the joy of finding a good idea. But what if the student spends time brainstorming, then asks an AI tool to analyze their list and suggest what they might consider adding? The timing of this use changes the effect. Now it pushes them to keep brainstorming, to evaluate ideas and gaps.

Prompting AI to rewrite a human-created draft to “make it better” deprives a student of learning how to revise. But if they ask an AI-powered tool to evaluate their grammar and suggest alternative wordings for awkward sentences, aren’t they experiencing the choices writers have always made, just with enhanced possibilities for syntax at their fingertips? If we slow them down to reflect on why certain syntax sounds better, how will this impact their ability to craft better sentences the next time?

Reflection

If we “use AI” to help write something but create human reflections about our use, we add a metacognitive layer to the thinking in an assignment.

Recently, I modified an existing writing assignment for my tenth-grade English classes by allowing them to “use AI,” if they were transparent and reflective about their use.

We start with a class activity from my new book called “Is It Cheating?” in which I model, live on the big screen in the front of my classroom, different ways to prompt AI to assist with an assignment. Students have a paper writer’s notebook in front of them—we use them all the time in my class–and as I demonstrate five possible uses of AI, they write a short, reflective paragraph explaining why each example is cheating or not.

Of course I share my opinion after listening to theirs, but students generally agree on which parts of the demonstration constitute cheating and which did not.

Throughout the assignment, just like all writing assignments I give, I watch their emerging essays through in-class writing time. The finished product is not the first time I see where they are headed or how they are getting there.

At the end of the assignment, I ask this question:

If you decided to use AI in any way, explain in detail how and when you used it in your writing process and why you believe this is a defensible use of this technology.

If you decided not to use AI at all, explain the reasons for your decision.

Here are several responses sophomores wrote this past semester:

For this essay, I used AI, but sparingly. AI was helpful for me because I was able to use it to get my mind rolling with ideas and topics for my essay. It also used it to help me rewrite a sentence when I couldn’t get it to sound right.

I used AI for help on my thesis, on how I could improve it. It turned out to not be that helpful, so I decided to ditch it.

I used AI to check my grammar and give me some word suggestions. I did not use AI to change my voice in the paper.

I did not use AI, but I will be honest that I got some help from my mom. She gave me some ideas to get me started on my body paragraphs.

I forgot that AI was an option to use. My bad.

How do I feel about these responses?

I love them all.

I love seeing that students were able to explain what they did and why and how it impacted their process and their product.

I love seeing that some students found AI added nothing to their process.

I love seeing some students forgot AI was even an option.

Just as the writing process is ultimately a little different for every writer, so will our avoidance of AI or our use of it. In the classroom, we can help give students the opportunity to look at the choices before them, guide them to make good ones, and help them reflect on the intent and the outcome of their choices.

Transparency and Beyond

In the spirit of transparency, I’ll note that I did not use any AI tools, aside from the Microsoft Word’s grammar checker, in the process of writing this piece. It is from-scratch baking.

But let’s remember that when someone says they “use AI,” most of the time it will not mean they “evaded all thinking through the inappropriate use of AI.” Naturally, that is a possible and easy misuse of this technology, and students may outsource more thinking or skills than they realize or intend to. Teachers need to articulate and demonstrate the value of productive struggle AND they need to share their thinking and explorations and sensible boundaries when AI is part of the writing process.

Banning AI “use” is unlikely to succeed. As professor Marc Watkins points out, “History is littered with failed public policies attempting to restrict young people’s behavior . . . Why would we expect AI bans to be any more effective?” What is effective in shaping young people’s choices is caring attention, guidance, and feedback—the voice of experience that our background as writing teachers brings to a new set of writing circumstances.

Now and in the future, “using AI” will mean that the student turned to this technology at some point in their process. Schools and teachers will need to be flexible and responsive to the students in front of us, the technologies that emerge, and incoming research on the effects of AI on learning. We have a golden opportunity to lead the way in how to be discerning and transparent in this use, how to resist the urge to outsource entire stages of the writing process, and how to optimize output that pushes our thinking rather than replaces it.