Homeschool Writing and Then Some
Ever wish you had someone who could hold your hand through this homeschool journey and help you know what’s important and what might trip you up? That’s what this podcast aims to do, especially as it pertains to preparing middle/high school kids to be successful writers. Because teaching teens to write can be tricky. What exactly are you supposed to teach? And how are you supposed to teach it? What if your child hates to write? What if you hate to write!? These are some of the challenges we’ll explore each week. If you’re looking for guidance as well as a little bit of encouragement and a lot of inspiration, you’ve come to the right place.
Homeschool Writing and Then Some
Ep #23 ChatGPT and Essay Writing: My Policy Statement
Have you tried out ChatGPT or other Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)? If you have, you know that the things it can do are pretty amazing.
I remember my son Ty (PT major, fitness fanatic) raving about its capabilities shortly after it became freely available in November 2022, because it was able to “miraculously” create a custom-made meal plan and exercise program in about 2 seconds, saving him many hours of time and effort.
When I finally I got around to trying it out for myself more than a year later, I was equally impressed. But also concerned, as many educators are, about the potential for students to use AI unethically in their school work.
So I set out to learn all I could about GenAI, because I realized that I needed to have a policy statement in place concerning GenAI before my students began to work on their first essay of the year.
In this episode, I share my findings as well as the policy statement I developed. Some of the topics I cover are
✅Why some educators think the college essay is dead and that it’s time to blow up the current system of traditional writing and try something new
✅Why other educators think the college essay is NOT dead and that it’s more important than ever to teach traditional writing skills
✅How some educators are striving to find middle ground by combining GenAI with traditional writing instruction
✅Why students need to be careful when using Grammarly
✅The reasons that all GenAI is banned in my English classes
Links Mentioned:
“The College Essay Is Dead.” By Stephen Marche
“The End of High School English.” By Daniel Herman
“The Case for Writing: Competency Is Essential.” By Annie Checkitelli.
“The College Essay is Not Dead: Using Scaffolding and Presentations to Create ChatGPT-Resistant Research Projects.”
“Why I’m Not Scared of ChapGPT.”
“1 in 3 College Applicants Used AI For Essay Help. Did They Cheat?”
"AI and the Death of Student Writing."
"Oxford encourages students to use AI when writing essay"
"I'm a Student. You Have No Idea How Much We're Using ChatGPT."