I recently read AI in the Writing Workshop: Finding the Write Balance by Dennis Magliozzi, Kristina Peterson (Heinemann, 2025). After attending a session with the two writers at #NCTE25 I knew I had to dive deeper into their book, which didn’t disappoint. As high school English teachers, both discussed how they used AI for teaching facing and student facing writing tasks partnering with Human Intelligence to better serve student writing and thinking. Their guiding question: How can human intelligence (HI) work with artificial intelligence (AI) in a productive partnership in our ELA classrooms?
Right from the start of the book I was hooked. I hear many teachers talk about AI as this cheating platform and Magliozzi and Peterson address this head on: “There will always be ways for students to cheat online, and that is only one aspect revealed about AI’s character. We believe that teaching students how to leverage the power of AI to improve their writing and thinking has the potential to aid both students and teachers in the classroom, and to anticipate the work world they will inhabit.” (pg. 5)
They go on to write, “The real crisis here isn’t about cheating or our curriculum. It’s about our students relationship with writing. Consider things from their perspective: If their teacher doesn’t care about the process and doesn’t focus time and energy on the student’s journey through it, why shouldn’t they use AI? Too often, writing is reduced to a formulaic exercise, one that can be outsources and assembled easily by generative AI. The majority of tasks in schools asks students to provide information to explain in a coherent way the answer to a prompt-based question, the same question everyone else is also responding to. All things AI can do and, because of its character, do very quickly.
. . . AI is going to force us to shake things up. Perhaps the best foot forward is to reevaluate our approach to teaching writing and how that instruction deepens or deadens a student’s relationship with it. Students deserve the opportunity to discover themselves as writers. We need to turn our classrooms into places where real writing happens, where students engage with and explore a topic important to them through written word. Writing is more than simply conveying information; it’s about learning how to think critically, creatively, and analytically.” (pg. 10)
Right at the end of Chapter One they shared their curriculum map of the writing tasks they assign to their students throughout the year and where AI is incorporated into the units.
This got me thinking where are places where I can be more intentional with AI as a thought partner throughout the writing process? I mapped out the writing tasks I ask of my students throughout the school year and consider where AI needs to be incorporated. I really love the idea Magliozzi and Peterson share where students write a literary analysis essay based on AI’s commentary. This puts students critical thinking at the forefront to showcase their on thinking and understanding of a text.
“Our best foot forward is to teach students how to use it as an ally. The collaboration of HI and AI can write far better than just prompting a bot with the essay prompt and handing that in.” (pg. 25) I am on the same page with the authors that students write first and struggle second. AI is the third step in the process. Students need to learn to trust their own thinking and also know that without struggle there is no growth.
Utilizing AI effectively is a matter of directing the bot to do what you want it to do. This requires writing, reading, rereading, and rewriting to get the output that you are looking for. The authors provide some specifics how they prompt the bot to support student writers.
One of the last elements that really I am interested in adopting in my classroom is the element of reflection. Students write a reflection (can be a Google Form or questionnaire) to consider how the AI tool helped them through the writing process and their final project, where did they get the most help and support, and what was not helpful with AI. Adding this reflection piece is key because it always students to develop metacognitive awareness and honor their own thinking and writing.
The Teaching Factor 
