We recognize that dealing with AI can be a frustrating aspect of our work as educators and Writing Coaches. We hope that by considering the circumstances and motivations that might lead a student to use AI, you will feel empowered to be proactive and collaborative in your approach.
Brainstorming Without a Plan or Personalized Effort
Some students have teachers encouraging them to use AI as a brainstorming tool. While AI can be extremely valuable for brainstorming, its success really depends on the training a student has received in crafting prompts for the AI.
- If a student is just plugging in the prompt plus a few details, they are going to get a generic and buzzword-driven response that doesn’t serve them and encourages them to write in hyperbole.
- If a student writes a more comprehensive paragraph about the experiences they want to use in their essay and their theme, AI could generate questions to help them brainstorm unique entry points. With this process, they could end up with a compelling first draft! Still, they should answer those questions themselves.
English Language Learners
ELL students often write their essays in their native language and then run them through translation software. Then, they might ask AI to polish the writing. This game of telephone can lead to a mess! However, these students probably still feel like they wrote their own essays.
- Translation software makes decisions on style, idiomatic phrasing, and cadence that can both dramatically alter the essay’s tone and lean heavily into sounding like AI-generated content.
- It also bears noting here that research shows that ELL writers receive the most AI false positives.
Polishing—and Grammarly’s Overreach
Even for students for whom English is their first language, the temptation to polish their writing using AI is substantial! Letting Grammarly Premium have a go might make their essay sound “better” superficially, but that is often at the cost of personality and unique insights/details.
- AI-powered grammar software has become more insidious in suggesting stylistic changes and can sometimes blend those suggestions with grammar fixes with an “accept all” approach that can quickly shift a student’s tone and even their meaning.
- While we require that coaches use grammar & spell-checking software (Grammarly, Hemingway, Quillbot, etc.), we also strongly recommend caution.
- Suggestions that are underlined in red are related to grammar and spelling. That still doesn’t mean they should be accepted without review! AI sometimes (often) gets the context wrong! Suggestions in blue are stylistic suggestions, and these should be accepted with caution and sparingly. Leaning into AI’s suggestions for voice and tone can quickly homogenize your feedback and your students’ work.
- There are options in Grammarly account settings (Account > Writing > Your Preferences) to turn off some suggestions. We recommend turning off the options that start with “sound more…” (confident, personal, etc.) and “rewrite text…” (for clarity, improved effect, etc.). These seem to be the suggestions that overstep the most and veer into AI territory.
Let AI Do It
Of course, some students think that AI could do a better, faster job than they could. We have seen this from students who had consistently been “doing the work” but then found themselves with half a dozen essays to write in just a few days, so they panicked and turned to AI.
Sometimes, if we can figure out a student’s motivation for using AI content generation, we can support them in reverse engineering a human solution.
- For example, if a student is worried about the level of their writing, we can assure them that stylistic and technical editing should come after we work on developing content.
- If a student isn’t sure where to start or how to organize their thoughts and “AI does it better,” we can (1) point out the holes in AI’s work and (2) help them develop an outline to organize their ideas.
- If a student feels overwhelmed by a block of brainstorming questions, we can break them down into in-text brainstorming questions that identify key entry points for insights.
- If a student just thinks there is too much work to do. They’re right! College applications are a lot of work! We can use content mapping and derivative essays to work efficiently instead of wasting time on multiple drafts to correct superficial and non-congruent AI-generated content.
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