Make student learning visible and actionable, while building routines that support success.

Assessing can sometimes feel like all we’re doing — baselines, screeners, diagnostics (oh my!) — and students can feel fatigued before the learning has even really begun.

It’s a great time to remember that it’s our formative assessment — all the places we stop with students and take stock of how we’re doing en route to the summit — that is so critical for student achievement. When we take stock — and help students take stock — of what they know and can do so far, the reflection, feedback, and course correction can really help students see learning as a process. It’s invaluable for writing, for example, if young people can get feedback early and often to know what their next right move can be. Formative assessment is so beneficial for young people, and it can be simply and cleanly embedded in our daily teaching practice.

I have the joy of journeying with teachers and leaders as a coach, and this is the process I most recommend to support students in assessment for learning. It asks leaders to set aside team time, teachers to follow a customizable routine in their daily instruction, and for students, it makes how to succeed in your classes super clear.

And so, we share success criteria, track who has met them, provide feedback to students who need extra support, and come together with our team to generate new ideas and approaches. This process puts formative assessment at the center of everyday instruction in a practical, manageable way. When embedded consistently, students gain clarity on their learning, and teachers gain insights from each other that make instruction stronger for everyone.

Activate student curiosity and writing through image-based inquiry.

​We live in a visual culture. 

Scrolling through images has become the air most of us breathe — and for many of us, it’s the first way we take in new information. Often, images hook us, prompting a pause long enough to explore further. Sometimes, they even lead us to seek additional context.

Harnessing the power of images as a teaching tool is not new. Yet revisiting this strategy can be especially helpful in our visually saturated, complex classrooms. Images offer accessible entry points for a wide range of learners, spark curiosity, and can support skill-building across disciplines.

Recently, in my coaching work at The Brooklyn School for Math and Research (BSMART) in Bushwick, Brooklyn, we designed and implemented a workshop series inspired by the New Visions High Schools District Literacy Influencer series facilitated by CPET. This district-wide series offers experiences with a variety of literacy routines that teacher-participants adjust, implement, and turnkey at their school sites. At BSMART, we saw an opportunity to leverage the structure of this series to meet the needs of our multilingual, visually rich classrooms. We chose to center our work on why and how images are powerful learning tools, because images can “speak” across languages and learning styles, offering all students accessible entry points for engagement.

My partner in the work, Malik Bolden, a graduate of the Neuroscience Department at Teachers College, Columbia University, offered us a peek at the science of neurolearning behind images as a learning tool. 

In brief, based on the principles of neurolearning, images support learning in many ways:

1. Brain Efficiency and Processing: Research from cognitive neuroscience (e.g., by John Sweller, Richard Mayer, and Allan Paivio) indicates that the brain is inherently better at processing images than raw text because images are processed in the visual cortex, which is highly specialized for interpreting visual data. When you add visuals to a lesson, you activate areas of the brain associated with recognition, emotional response, and memory recall.
2. Memory Retention: Allan Paivio’s Dual-Coding Theory posits that the brain processes verbal and visual information through two distinct channels—one for words and one for images. When both types of information are used together, it helps create stronger, more interconnected pathways in the brain, and therefore stronger memories. Learners are able to recall and process material better when both text and images are present, rather than just one or the other.
3. Making the Abstract Concrete: Images make abstract ideas more tangible by providing concrete visual representations that are more easily understood. For example, a diagram of the water cycle or human anatomy can make it much clearer than just a paragraph of text describing it.  Infographics such as charts and diagrams simplify complex concepts by breaking them into parts. 
4. Encourage Active Learning: Looking at images can prompt students to make connections, ask questions, and engage with the content more actively. For example, a photo of a historical event might inspire students to wonder and explore the context or causes of that event.
5. Emotional Impact and Memory: John Medina, author of Brain Rules, explains that emotions play a large role in memory. Images can evoke emotional responses, making the content more memorable. For example, a powerful photo from history can trigger an emotional reaction that helps a student recall related facts and concepts later on. 

Images can be used intentionally at different moments in a lesson or unit to support engagement, understanding, and reflection. Below are three high-impact points where images can deepen learning across disciplines.

At BSMART, we began our workshop series by pairing images with the See, Think, Wonder protocol from Harvard’s Project Zero. This simple routine offers students accessible entry points into new topics by inviting them to observe closely, make meaning, and ask questions.

Teachers quickly noticed that See, Think, Wonder worked well for introducing concepts. Over time, however, they wanted students to think more deeply and produce more sustained, coherent writing. To support this shift, we experimented with layering prompts, expectations, and complementary strategies onto the protocol.

Below is one way See, Think, Wonder can grow from an observation routine into a tool for deeper thinking, writing stamina, and critical analysis.

Based on our explorations at BSMART so far, we’ve seen that starting with images — and intentionally layering protocols, questions, and clear expectations — can spark curiosity, deepen thinking, and support the development of critical thinking and writing skills across disciplines.

Images alone aren’t the magic; it’s how we structure students’ interactions with them that makes learning visible and accessible. We encourage you to experiment with these strategies in your own classroom to create meaningful entry points for every learner. We’d love to hear how it goes.

Move beyond allowed vs. forbidden with AI by practicing discernment and cultivating a practice of personal and professional integrity. 

AI can be helpful in one moment and harmful in another — it’s rarely all good or all bad. Ethical use comes from asking the right questions to discern Generative AI in context. Guide students (and yourself) to use the Help-Harm-Hope Framework: How might this tool help my process right now? How might this tool harm my process right now? What do I hope I can do now?

​​In Part I of this series, we explored writing: how it can help us to think, build individual identity and voice, foster human connection, and reflect on our own being through attention and astonishment. Now, as we transition into Part II of the series, we will explore how Generative AI might augment those processes. 

Any time we discuss Generative AI, I think we must first acknowledge that we are not operating in a vacuum. Every time we prompt an LLM (Large Language Model), we are participating in a global phenomenon with significant macro implications. Here are just a few examples (there are many more):

• The Environmental Cost: Massive electricity grids and millions of gallons of water are required to power and cool the data centers that support every interaction we have with AI.
• The Creative Commons: AI models are trained on the "global library" of human art, literature, and code, often without the consent of or compensation for the original creators. 
• Systemic Bias: Because these tools are trained on the vast landscape of the internet, they often inherit and amplify Western-centric viewpoints, often erasing the unique cultural and linguistic rhythms that make individual voices so vital.

While these systemic issues require policy and institutional action, they can leave individuals feeling disempowered. How do we navigate a technology this massive within our own individual sphere of influence as leaders, teachers, and students in education? And, can any good come of it? 

To explore that question, let’s shift our gaze toward the micro — the impacts that fall within our individual sphere of influence. Whether you are a student drafting an essay, a teacher designing a lesson, or a leader navigating a master schedule, the focus moves from global energy grids to the internal discernment process of the individual as they decide what “ethical use” means in contextualized moments — the moments when we sit down to write and ask ourselves, “Will I start with myself, or will I start with a Generative AI tool?” 

In this context, the work is centered on discernment. We are looking for the "sweet spot" where technology supports us without bypassing the messy process of creation. I suggest that this requires us to look at the trade-offs of AI through a specific lens: The Micro Harms and Helps. 

The table below serves as the roadmap for the remainder of this series. Each upcoming article will be a "deep dive" into one of these four pillars, exploring how teachers, leaders, and students can navigate tensions in real-time related to thinking, identity, connection, and being. 

​Because we are focused on individual agency, we need a repeatable way to navigate these trade-offs. For this, I propose what I am calling the Help-Harm-Hope Framework, inspired by Anthropic’s red-teaming protocols, which assess the benefits and challenges posed by new Gen AI capabilities. 

The root of the word discernment comes from the Latin discerne, which means "to sift." When we discern, we are sifting through the possibilities — separating what is useful from what is harmful. This isn't about a macro-level policy; it is about the "sifting" that individual students, teachers, and leaders can do in a specific moment. 

1. Help: The Benefits

• The Inquiry: How might this tool help my process right now? 
• The Sifting: Use the Micro Helps column for inspiration. 

2. Harm: The Challenges

• The Inquiry: How might this tool harm my process right now? 
• The Sifting: Use the Micro Harms column for inspiration. 

3. Hope: The Ethically Discerned Choice

• The Inquiry: What do I hope I can do now?
• The Sifting: This is the intentional plan — the "why" behind the use. It requires exploring both help and harm to find a path of integrity. For example: "I hope to use AI to help me organize my classroom visitation schedule (Help), but I will write my teacher observations myself so I don't lose the human Connection (protecting against Harm)."

​This framework is a tool for transparent discernment. A leader might use it to demonstrate their own reasoning to a staff; a teacher might use it to set boundaries for a project; a student might use it to decide if a prompt is helping them think or doing the thinking for them. It moves us away from the binary of "allowed vs. forbidden" and toward a professional and personal practice of integrity.

In the coming weeks, we will explore each of these pillars in depth. We will start with Thinking, examining how we can keep the "Discovery" in the writing process, even in partnership with Gen AI tools. 

Turn what you notice in the classroom into meaningful insights that help every student grow.

Imagine for a moment a skill you have, something you’re good at: swimming, dancing, sketching, listening, problem solving, you name it. How did you become strong at this skill? Chances are good that someone showed you how to do it, you practiced it a whole lot, and over time, you became incrementally better at executing it. It is wonderful to be able to see progress as you build skills. And just like you, our students can feel the satisfaction of growing their skills — step by step, day by day — when we help them notice and celebrate their progress.

We know one powerful way to change our classrooms for the better is to shift our focus from what I taught to what students learned. In doing so, we can more naturally monitor progress and see how learning unfolds. One practical way to do this is by paying close attention to how students are growing: clarifying what success looks like, noticing the skills they’re developing, and using that information to guide the next steps in learning.

Helping students see their progress doesn’t have to be complicated — there are low-lift strategies that make it easy to notice skills developing, celebrate wins, and plan next steps.

​Your daily learning target, goal or objective for your class can easily become a quick checklist for both you and your students. Consider a classic ELA objective: students will be able to use a strategy to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. At the start of the lesson, support students in unpacking and annotating this objective, and creating a simple checklist — on the board, or in their notebooks.

For example: How will I know I was successful? I can define an unfamiliar word, and I can use the strategy my teacher taught me today in order to define it.

Now both you and your students can quickly determine whether the lesson’s goal was met. Making the criteria for success visible in this way is a simple, powerful step in tracking growth.

​During the portion of your lesson where students work on their skill, you likely circulate to offer support. You can make this time even more powerful by keeping track of who’s mastering the skill and who might need extra help. A simple table makes this easy:

As you circulate, take note of each student’s progress. For example, if we use the ELA objective from above, the independent work time is a chance for students to try the strategy. Noting who is successful, approaching mastery, or still struggling will help you plan groups and provide targeted support the next day, turning circulation into a clear, actionable snapshot of learning. (Dig deeper with The Progressive Scaffolding Framework, which offers a clear approach for providing just the right support at the right time!)

​Conferencing is a powerful way to see growth in action, as noted by my colleague Dr. Cristina Compton in Conferences as Conversations: Meeting Students Where They Are. Cristina explores how to confer effectively, while here the emphasis is on what to track during those conversations. One approach is to create a list of the skills needed for excellence. Similar to the table above — but designed to be shared directly with students — this list might include, for example, making a claim, supporting it with relevant evidence, and analyzing the evidence to strengthen an argument. A simple table could look like this:

As you confer with young people about their work, make a note of what skill they are working to master, and share your notes and observations with them. This keeps you and your student aligned on next steps, helps guide skill development, and provides a meaningful record of growth over time. 

​Shifting our focus from what we teach to what students learn allows classrooms to become student-centered spaces where growth is visible, celebrated, and actionable. When we pay attention to student progress in thoughtful, intentional ways — even in small moments — we send a powerful message: learning is a process, effort matters, and improvement is always possible. By fostering this awareness, we not only support skill development but also help students build confidence, take ownership of their learning, and see themselves as capable of continual growth.

Reimagine canonical texts as living conversations that help students grapple with power, justice, and moral choice.

​Seeing a canonical text on your list as a teacher or a student can be intimidating, delightful, or might even unearth deep sighs regarding the potential boredom you may endure. However, most canonical texts remain relevant for a reason. Though we’re reading about specific characters in a specific time period, as with many canonical texts, we are really reading about what it means to be human: to be reminded of our interconnectedness and the universality of relevant and of recurring themes, to empathize and relate to the plight and what is endured, and to take any lessons learned or crucial moral back into our own existential journey. 

In teaching these texts, we must find ways to keep them engaging, exciting, and enlightening for young people, whether that’s through intentionally critiquing them using critical lenses or culturally relevant frameworks; putting canonical texts in conversation with more contemporary texts to open up dialogue between texts for students; or bringing canonical text to life with Literacy Unbound, which offers practical, arts-based strategies that any classroom can use. 

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible — which centers on a community swept up in the Salem witch trials, as accusations escalate and truth becomes increasingly hard to find — is one such text that endures, because it has something powerful to say about the human experience. 

In 1996, almost 50 years after he created it, Arthur Miller himself reflected on why he wrote The Crucible, noting:

“I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful…the more I read into the Salem panic, the more it touched off corresponding images of common experiences in the fifties. Apparently certain processes are universal.”

When young people (or teachers!) are encountering difficulty processing the state of the world, engaging with literature like The Crucible — through close readings, performing, and writing — can offer us the opportunity to wrestle with and learn from history, especially its darker and more challenging parts. History has a way of echoing itself, and Miller knew this all too well. As the playwright says in his reflection in the New Yorker, 

“It is only a slight exaggeration to say that, especially in Latin America, The Crucible starts getting produced wherever a political coup appears imminent, or a dictatorial regime has just been overthrown. The play seems to present the same primeval structure of human sacrifice…that goes on repeating itself forever as though embedded in the brain of social man.”

By exploring these patterns, teachers and students alike can think through the impacts of injustice, mass hysteria, and the abuse of power, contemplating the integrity and moral courage needed in such moments as these. And it’s in this space — where students grapple with big questions and their own interpretations — that the real work of thinking begins.

If The Crucible is on your reading list — whether you’ve chosen to teach it or it’s part of your curriculum — our Literacy Unbound initiative has practical ways to bring the text to life in your classroom.

Alongside assigning parts to read aloud, you can add in Creating the Scene, an activity where we collectively envision and co-create the space by naming what the set looks like, calling out where various people, places, things, furnishings, nature, etc. live in the scene before it’s read aloud to the class. This collaborative approach helps students visualize the story more vividly while actively participating in its creation.

These exercises also allow students to consider choices made within the text, and how one might respond in character, such as John Proctor. Though, of course, he has been understandably reflected upon as a villain, Miller says: “That John Proctor the sinner might overturn his paralyzing personal guilt and become the most forthright voice against the madness around him was a reassurance to me, and, I suppose, an inspiration: it demonstrated that a clear moral outcry could still spring even from an ambiguously unblemished soul.”

Alongside exploring major plot points, you can add in Polaroids, an activity where a scene unfolds over time, slowly developing, then gelling, like a Polaroid picture. Students can capture the scene the way they would a picture by having each person walk in and take their pose or place in whatever is occurring in that moment, then freezing for commentary, questioning, or synthesis. This helps solidify the understanding of key plot elements while still making space for student choice and engagement.

Alongside discussing major themes, you can try Sculpture Garden, an activity where young people alternately act as clay and sculptors of each other when prompted with words like “injustice” or “hysteria.” Students walk around to view all of the sculptures — students silently acting out the theme after having been sculpted in a particular pose by their peers. By embodying the text in this way, students gain insight into characters’ experiences and develop a richer, more empathetic understanding of the text’s themes.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to bring texts to life through Literacy Unbound, consider joining us this summer for a one-week institute made for teachers and high school students to experience literature in hands-on, collaborative ways. Together, we will make sense of a shared text — this year, The Crucible! — and create an original production that expresses our shared interpretation. 

When we engage with stories like The Crucible, we’re reminded that we are not the first to face the challenges of our times — and that reading, writing, and discussing the struggles of the past can help illuminate our present and shape our future. And we learn, too, that flawed or not, each of us has the capacity to choose our actions and our response — to remember that action is always possible, whether small or sweeping, even when the personal stakes feel high.

Turn the quiet left by phones into the productive noise of student talk, curiosity, and deep learning.

Our young people have been unwitting participants in a grand social experiment with technology — cell phones, social media, and more. Parents, teachers, and schools have been part of this experiment as well. Now, many of us are taking part in a new experiment to ban or restrict cell phones in schools. Most adults support the ban or restrictions, while some parents are concerned about being able to reach their children.  

A 2024 National Education Association (NEA) poll found that 90 percent of teachers support prohibiting student cellphone use during instructional hours. 75 percent favor extending restrictions to the entire school day. At this point, over half the states are requiring districts to come up with a policy, while a handful of states have outright banned cell phone use in schools. 

With fewer distractions, students are not just more focused — they have more space and energy to engage in meaningful conversations with peers. Early reports from teachers and administrators confirm that students seem more focused in class and that they are interacting more in the cafeteria. Principal John Murphy of Walt Whitman High School on Long Island attests: “You can hear the tone in the energy of the classroom, and more importantly in the lunchroom, there is more social interaction because they can’t bury themselves in their phones.”

In recent coaching sessions with early-career middle and high school teachers, we talked about the impact of the cell phone restrictions on students and we planned for a classroom without the distraction of notifications and the weight of a cell phone in a pocket. Our conversations led me to feel hopeful about new opportunities to increase not only students’ focus on their school work, but a focus on each other — meaning more productive and positive interactions, and hopefully an improved classroom culture.

To help teachers make the most of this opportunity, I revisited a few simple protocols and routines that I have enjoyed using in my own classroom and that I have seen work for harnessing students' natural social energy. Thank you to the teachers in Brooklyn and Queens whom I work with for bringing these routines to life in their classrooms and inspiring me to share them here! 

​Reciprocal Teaching

• What it is: A cooperative learning strategy in which students are in groups of four, with each taking a turn leading one reading skill: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. 
• Why to use it: Students are asked to utilize a variety of literacy skills that build reading comprehension. Each student takes a turn as a leader, building collaboration skills between peers.
• How to use it: Try practicing and modeling the process with students before they use it independently, with each student getting to try out each role with a simple, short text.  

​

​Four "A"s Text Protocol

• What it is: A reading protocol with a structured discussion method that guides participants to analyze and annotate a text by focusing on four key areas: the author's assumptions, aspects they agree with, part of the text they argue with, and parts they aspire to or would like to take action on.
• Why to use it: This activity promotes critical thinking and collaborative learning while making comprehension and interpretation visible to both students and teachers.
• How to use it: Ask students to read and annotate the text individually, then guide them to share their notes in small groups, discussing each category one at a time and building collective understanding through structured conversation.

​

Code 10 Protocol

• What it is: A cooperative strategy where students read and annotate a text independently using common codes and/or a purpose for their reading. After reading and annotating their texts, students join in a group of any size that works (generally 2-4 work best) and have a 10-minute conversation by taking turns discussing each students’ annotations, one code at a time. 
• Why use it: While this protocol is structured and creates accountability, it also offers students choice and the opportunity to share their own thinking. Code 10 also asks students to read and annotate using a variety of literacy skills that can be adjusted based on the purpose for their reading. 
• How to use it: Decide which annotations you would like students to use based on the purpose for reading the text. Offer students adequate time to read individually and annotate their texts. Then, organize them into groups of three or four to discuss their annotations.

​

Placemat Technique

• What it is: A cooperative learning strategy using a collective “placemat” placed in the middle of a group of students to organize the discussion. The placemat is generally a simple template on paper with a square drawn in the middle. Students share their responses to a key question (which is written or posted in the square in the middle of the placemat). by adding their response to the corner of the placemat closest to their seat. 
• Why use it: Students at all levels can use this concrete strategy easily. Each student brings their response to the mat, which creates equal tasks for each student. This strategy is highly adaptable, with students using the placemat to compare responses or solutions to a problem.
• How to use it: Divide students into small groups (ideally four). Have each student write ideas in their personal section, then guide the group to discuss and agree on a consensus to record in the center, and optionally post the placemat for sharing or future reference.

​

Stick It Together

• What it is: Similar to the Placemat Technique, this is a collaborative learning strategy where students write individual responses to a prompt on sticky notes, then place them on a shared area to compare, discuss, and synthesize ideas. 
  
• Why use it: This protocol encourages participation, critical thinking, and consensus-building as students work together to develop a collective response. Students are asked to evaluate each others’ responses, taking their thinking to a higher level. 
  
• How to use it: Have students individually write ideas on sticky notes, place them on the shared "mat", discuss as a group, select or synthesize the strongest response as a “best answer,” and share it with the class.
  

​

Think-Pair-Share

• What it is: This is one of the simplest routines, but I had to include it because it is so useful with any age group and across all disciplines. It might just be the most manageable way to get all students to speak in class. This discussion strategy asks students to first respond to a prompt in writing, then share their ideas with a partner before contributing to a whole-class conversation.
• Why use it: Especially for younger grades or quick questions in the classroom, this offer students a little more wait time or think time. The approach builds confidence, encourages participation, and leads to richer, more thoughtful discussions.
• How to use it: Have students first respond to a prompt individually (writing or drawing for younger students), then pair up to discuss their ideas, and finally reconvene the class so pairs can share insights with everyone. This structure can be applied at multiple points in a lesson—before new material, after a text or video, or prior to starting an assignment—to encourage reflection, conversation, and idea development.

​

Turn and Talk

• What it is: A structured partner discussion strategy where students first reflect individually, then take turns sharing their ideas with a partner, building confidence and encouraging respectful academic dialogue.
• Why use it: Supports low-stakes thinking and communication, strengthens relationships between students, and promotes thoughtful, collaborative discussions.
• How to use it: Pose a reflection question and have students write or note their responses. Students then share their thoughts in pairs, taking turns as 1st and 2nd responder, and optionally share a summary with another pair or the whole class.

​

​Without phones buzzing in their pockets, students have the focus to read more closely, talk to one another more authentically, and engage with ideas more deeply. And, you have space to try structuring collaboration to invite curiosity and amplify student talk. This newfound quiet creates space to structure collaboration, spark curiosity, and amplify the productive “noise” of student talk and learning.

Anchor your teaching with a single focus, and watch your practice gain clarity and momentum.

The start of the year, with its fresh energy, can be incredibly energizing. It can also be relatively overwhelming. There are so many things happening day to day in a school, and we want our classrooms to be excellent, even exceptional, amidst all of the happenings with our young people, families, colleagues, administration, and communities. 

You have likely heard the saying that if you have more than three priorities, you actually have none. It’s true! If we’re focused on accomplishing too many things, we may only see slight improvements in the many things we have chosen. 

But when we focus on a single priority, we can achieve meaningful growth as well as stay centered, maintain momentum, and preserve our personal and professional sanity in the process. Here’s how this plays out day to day:

1. In the sea of logistics, initiatives, and next right moves, you have a consistent anchor.
2. You create the agency and authority to direct, or co-direct the year ahead for yourself.
3. When your coach or manager comes to visit you, you already know the focus of the visit.

​I have the joy of journeying with teachers and leaders as a coach, and this is the process I most recommend to select (or co-select) a priority:

• First, take some quiet, reflective time to consider what you’d like to prioritize this year. Think of where you are in your career, what you’d like to improve, and what feels like the next right move this year. One of the best ways to do this is to list out your strengths and your values by making a Page One — an accounting of what matters to you most. You can also use the Covey Quadrants/Eisenhower Matrix to identify what is important, but not urgent — that is, the things that are often most powerful for us to do, but the easiest to put off for another day (think, exercise, vacation…and your priorities too, ironically!) 
• Second, connect with your leadership team. Align your thinking to the school or district wide instructional focus, so they can see how your improvement will improve the school, too. Alternatively, align your thinking to the metric your school uses for evaluation to find common language for naming that priority. Discuss deeply to ensure alignment with your leadership team to find the highest and right priority for you. Your team has different perspectives and perhaps a wider view, too, so their input and insight is invaluable to you when selecting your priorities.
• Third, meet and work together with your team to co-construct a plan of what working on your priority looks like over the arc of your year. Where do you want to be at year’s end? What are the next right moves toward greatness? Again, your Page One can really help you here, and so can whatever your school or organization’s method may be!

Naming, co-creating and making a plan for excellence with just one instructional priority can anchor you and focus discussions with leadership when they arise. This way, you stay clear and focused, and they do, too. Best of all, everyone sees the growth, improvement and progress you’re making all year long in your classroom. 

Even just a few minutes of writing can spark focus, empathy, and emotional growth.

​When we envision social-emotional learning, we may think of young people learning to regulate their emotions, maintain positive relationships, and boost their empathy or compassion for others. In turn, we may think that in order to uplift it in our classrooms and schools, we need to incorporate new curricula and teaching. But what if it was as simple as just making more space and time for more expressive writing? 

In our work at CPET, we often (if not always!) begin our own professional meetings with Writing for Full Presence, a brief yet highly impactful activity where we are given time to simply write out everything that may be on our minds, so that we can start our time together fully present. The grace, space, and dignity afforded in these moments can’t be overstated: we’re given the gift of a few moments to clear our heads of every human thing that happened to us before we got there, and in doing so, the fullness of our humanness is seen, accounted for, and given room to breathe.

This is one way of bringing clarity, focus, and humanity, with writing serving as social-emotional learning, and here’s another: when I was a teacher, I practiced Linda Trichter Metcalfe and Tobin Simon’s Proprioceptive Writing with my students at the behest of a very wonderful ELA colleague at my school who touted the benefits and wanted all young people to experience it. Known to boost attention, confidence, empathy, relational capacity, and emotional health, my high school students looked forward to it as a brief but important daily practice (it also made them stronger writers)! The reset provided by 5-7 minutes of a quiet space where young people can write about whatever they choose (in a day often without much choice, and often largely otherwise dictated by other people) was invaluable. 

​There are many other simple incorporations of expressive writing: writing yourself a letter (about the start of the year, the end of the year, an upcoming goal, or anything at all), keeping a journal, or even just having choice in how you write what you’re learning about in class. All can make way for greater social and emotional health and wellbeing. 

So, school leaders and classroom teachers, consider making time for expressive writing by:

• Setting aside anywhere from 3-10 minutes of class time at least 2 or 3 times weekly
• Selecting a practice, like Writing for Full Presence or Proprioceptive Writing, or
• Selecting an activity, like writing yourself a letter or writing a journal entry, or
• Offering a choice in how students complete a writing assignment about the content
• Giving space to your students to use how they see fit to regulate their emotions, manage their relationships, or boost their empathy.

Offering a little time back to our young people and asking them to use it in writing can result in enumerable glorious benefits for emotional health. How simple and how powerful to know that social emotional learning is available to us all in the tiny but mighty act of asking folks to write! 

A call to resist pulling the “magical string” of efficiency and return to writing as an act of attention, wonder, and genuine being.

Too often, the endless pragmatics of teaching—the deadlines, the standards, the required summaries—can reduce the powerful act of writing in our classrooms to a chore we and our students simply need to get through. Drawing inspiration from Mary Oliver's call to "pay attention" and "be astonished," this fifth installment of the Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI series argues for a mindset shift: reclaiming writing as an essential act of being that offers purpose and connection. 

“Instructions for living a life: 
Pay attention. 
Be astonished. 
Tell about it.”
– Mary Oliver’s “Sometimes” in Devo​tions (2008)

​“Read this so you can write your summaries.”
“Write down the notes so we can move on.”
“Write a few sentences so I can give you credit for the assignment.”
“We will read and write poems in this unit, then analyze them.”

As K-12 teachers, our focus constantly feels pulled toward the pragmatics. We tell our students we need to read just enough to practice the skill of summarizing. That we need to write notes to move on to the next lesson before the upcoming break. We need to get this practice work written so I can enter it into the grading portal before parent-teacher conferences. We will write poetry because the unit requires writing poetry. 

This is the reality of teaching: the pragmatics of time, parent communication, standards and objectives, and required curriculum and content often consume our days, which can lead to the desire to just get through to the end. To survive until it’s over. My mentor teacher used to say jokingly all the time, “This, too, shall pass.” I think our students often feel this sentiment—they may be willing to write, but it's just to get through the task to move on to the next one. 

​I recently recalled a French fairy tale I read as a child about a boy named Peter. Walking through the woods, he met a witch who offered him a magical ball of string that could accelerate time. Peter was thrilled; he could now fast-forward through all the terrible parts of his life efficiently.

He quickly pulled the string the next day when assigned school work. He pulled it again for an errand his mother asked him to run. He pulled and pulled and pulled until he suddenly stood at the end of his life. In a panic, he called upon the witch: “My life is suddenly over, and I never had a chance to live.” She granted him one final wish. He knew immediately what he wanted: “I’d like to go back to childhood and give you back the magical string.”

This fairy tale lingers in my mind now as I plan lessons, read the same poem for the 20th time with my students, and write feedback. I’ve heard the dreaded “remember your why” rhetoric used to justify asking more and more of educators. Yet, I also feel a renewed personal “why” as I teach and exist in a world in which generative AI can function as our magical string. What exactly am I accelerating through? Is it, to some extent, the work of living?

​I’ve used generative AI to create writing prompts for my students. It works far more efficiently than I ever could, instantly generating and differentiating as many as I like. I see this as a great use of these tools: to spark creativity, reduce writer’s block, and get through the lesson planning stage.

And yet, I long for the excitement I felt when I struggled to create my own prompts. I miss talking with colleagues about new ideas, reflecting on the invitations to write that my past teachers gave me, and turning to literature and forums to find questions that spark interest right now for my students and me. That challenging work shapes me just as much as I shape it. It’s part of what brought me to teaching in the first place—that’s something I enjoy doing with my time. 

The use or non-use of AI certainly doesn’t have to exist as a binary. As this article series continues, I’ll share and consider how generative AI tools may play a part in those planning and writing processes, for us as practitioners and for our students. But, I never want to lose sight of the message of the magical string tale; namely, that many of the most meaningful parts of life are often the ones we grapple with authentically and for ourselves, that we may want to accelerate through in the immediate moment. 

With that said, sometimes teaching does require us to just get through when things are especially difficult: that loud moment in class when I feel overstimulated, that stack of 50 essays that still need to be read and responded to, that inbox full of unanswered emails from families. 

​And also, Mary Oliver’s words return to me: I want my students to read and write because they pay attention, feel astonishment (or pain or joy or something real), and tell others about it, experiencing human connection and purpose. In this way, I believe one of the most pivotal purposes of writing (and reading, learning, and teaching) is a sense of being.

I don't want to pull the magical string all the time, only to end my teaching career and life feeling like I never truly was. Similarly, I don’t want my students to turn to generative AI because they believe the work of writing is only something to endure until it’s over. 

My students still write summaries, take notes, and strive for credit—but I’ve changed how I think about and frame those experiences for them and for myself. We summarize to uncover what caught our attention and what we want to tell others. We immerse ourselves in the feeling of writing: the struggle and the celebration as words land on the page. We slow down whenever possible to write poetry, because poetry might help us feel purpose and connection with the world. 

I enjoy planning my own writing prompts because that brings me feelings of individuality, struggle, creativity, and investment; and, sometimes, I use generative AI as a part of that process, especially when there just aren’t enough minutes in the day to get everything done. 

The pragmatics of teaching may not change. But, the orientation toward authentic attention and astonishment—toward being and enjoying life—that might just be transformative.
​

A look at what happens when growth work is shaped by the community it serves.

There are many reasons that I love my work as a coach. Among them: it never gets boring. Each project, partner school, and person is unique, and an opportunity for new connection, learning, and impact. At CPET, we honor this in our approach to supporting schools, as articulated in our six principles of practice, and through one in particular: Contextualized Practice. To us, contextualized practice means that we eschew one-size-fits-all teaching advice, curricula, or coaching programs; our work in schools is designed in response to the particular contexts and goals of our partners. 

This is trickier than perhaps it first seems. As coaches employed by an external organization, we are ultimately outsiders, not steeped in the context or culture of our partner schools on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, as my colleague G. Faith Little has written, contextualized practice can often look “messy,” and it can sometimes be hard to describe or illustrate what contextualized practice looks like…in practice. Even the ways we customize and contextualize our support are, well…contextual. 

So, instead of trying to generalize, I thought I would illustrate how I lean into contextualized practice through my work at one of our partner schools, where I support the community with weekly professional development sessions, and have now for four years and counting. 

Here are four concrete ways that the principle of contextualized practice lives in my partnership with this community, and that I believe might be relevant to people with varying roles and goals. Even if you are an “insider” to the community you’re serving, we are all always seeking to understand the needs and experiences of those different from us. 

​While it’s true that I’m the only CPET coach currently working in partnership with this particular school, you’ll notice that as I discuss the promising practices related to contextualized practice, I often use the pronoun “we.” That is because I have the pleasure and privilege of collaborating very closely with the school’s leadership team throughout the year as I engage in designing and facilitating professional learning. I join the school’s Instructional Leadership Team (ILT) — consisting of school administrators, teacher leaders, and district representatives — during their weekly meetings. Not only does this allow me to receive input and feedback on my plans from multiple stakeholders with an array of vantage points, but it allows me to remain privy to the issues and topics on community members’ hearts and minds, even when not directly related to my role. 

​A large part of contextualized practice is responding to needs and desires as they arise, which requires a willingness to change the plan. As someone who loves to plan (we’re educators — don’t we all?), I certainly relate to the discomfort this might create for some. While flexibility remains necessary, one way I mitigate this challenge is by collecting lots of data before we launch a school year or a particular PD cycle, so that in addition to responding to needs, I’m also anticipating them. 

Here’s an example. Each year, before the new school year begins, this school’s ILT holds a day-long retreat for some long-term planning. This past August, we took stock of community needs through an interactive likert scale activity, where each member of the team used dot stickers to assess how teachers were leveraging key instructional practices (inspired by the book, Learning that Lasts). We then spent time reviewing, discussing, and ordering the different topics to consider what should be prioritized and emphasized. 

​Of course, the initial needs assessment is only the beginning of collecting and analyzing data. At the end of every professional learning session, we collect teacher reflections and feedback via a Google Form survey. The questions are simple yet illuminating:

• What did you find most helpful about the session?
  
• How will this impact your practice?
  
• What questions do you have?
  
• What would you like to see more of next time?
  

And every week, we review the responses as a leadership team, discussing what stands out, and how this translates into next steps. 

This is not a groundbreaking practice, but it is crucial in developing a contextualized practice that responds to feedback and experiences in real time. I will say that reviewing feedback in a way that is consistent, systematic, and collaborative has greatly strengthened my practice, shifting my internal inquiry from “did I do a good job? Did they like it?” to “how do we build on the work we’ve done? What are teachers ready for next?” While the former questions arise naturally when we work hard and aim to please, the latter better center the learning experiences of teachers, and I find this depersonalization much easier to achieve when in conversation with others. Furthermore, discussing the feedback with teachers and leaders helps me recognize patterns and understand responses in ways that I might have missed otherwise. 

It’s widely accepted that effective teaching — regardless of students’ age or stage of development — includes providing models and examples. However, because the work of teaching and learning is so contextual, providing an authentic exemplar is sometimes insufficient in helping learners connect to the content if it doesn’t reflect the reality of their particular teaching and learning context. I remember sitting in PD as a teacher and thinking, “this topic is just not relevant to my students’ lives,” or watching a teaching video and thinking, “I would love to try this strategy, but how would it work if my classroom space is half the size?” 

This is why, whenever possible, we try to use models and examples created by and for members of the school community — so that teachers can expend less of their precious mental energy imagining how something is relevant to them and their students. 

For example: when planning a professional learning cycle on formative assessment, we decided to lean on a teacher leader who often uses Plickers to design and facilitate meaningful checks for understanding in her Science classroom. She happily agreed to have a portion of an upcoming lesson filmed, and then we showed the clip during one of the PD sessions. Not only did the staff have an example of how the strategy worked in their very school building, but their colleague was there to provide additional context and answer questions — something you don’t get from a video clip on Youtube. 

​I’ve described several ways we’ve worked to ensure that the context of the school informs the design of professional development. But for contextualized practice to truly take root, the influence must go both ways: professional development should also shape the school context. That’s how we move toward our ultimate goal: meaningful shifts in teacher practice and student learning. 

This is why each PD cycle is structured with the LARS model, which means that after learning, discussing, and engaging with a new concept or strategy, teachers are given time and support to apply it to their own practice directly. Teachers pull up unit plans and lesson plans, slides and materials, and revise, tweak, and integrate. 

After teachers have the chance to implement, they reflect on what happened, and share with each other. This is another crucial step in contextualization; by learning how colleagues adapted and applied a concept or strategy to their own classrooms, they receive additional examples of contextualized learning. 

In sharing a bit about this particular project, I’ve hoped to highlight the ways that contextualized practice works in practice. However, in doing so, I believe I’ve also highlighted the ways that so many of our principles of practice work interdependently. Our work becomes so much more contextualized when we have the opportunity to belong to and participate in a community of practice; when we use data to anticipate and respond to needs through cycles of inquiry; and when we cultivate the existing strengths of the community. 

When the lesson hooks but the reading stalls, these moves help students jump in.

I’m in a 9th grade science class and it is first period. Students have trickled in and the teacher allows them to finish their breakfasts as they begin class. The teacher opens class with a short, engaging video about rising ocean temperatures, and the potential effects of rising seawaters, even right here in the Bronx. Students comment on how crazy it would be if parts of New York City were underwater. We pull up a map to see how far inland our school in the South Bronx is compared with the coasts of New York City, to give students a sense of the coastland and interior parts of the city, and how far inland the seawaters could potentially reach depending on the rising ocean temperature.

​Their interest is piqued, and the teacher has officially launched the Weather and Climate unit in the Earth and Space Sciences. We are off to a good start for this class, despite how depressing it is to look at climate change from a scientific perspective.  

The teacher feels strongly that students lose focus and attention when they are on their laptops, so he provides a physical handout of the reading on this topic, along with a few questions that are based on the reading. The questions vary in terms of being “right there” questions and questions that are more thought-provoking and analytical.

​Here’s when I notice class starts to shift a bit.

The teacher has distributed all of the handouts. The breakfasts have been completed and cereal boxes and tin foil wrappers have been thrown out, so there are no distractions.

But students are doing anything but reading.

​Two students ask to go to the bathroom. Another student puts her head down. Another student starts poking a classmate with his elbow and then pretends he didn’t when he’s asked to stop. One student starts rifling through her bag looking for something. You get the idea…one student is looking at the reading, but just looking — his eyes are not moving he is just staring at the page. Students are looking for ways to do anything but read the text on climate change, a topic that a minute ago they were so curious about!  

I visit with the teacher, who is taking attendance and fielding a few latecomers.

“It looks like they are having a hard time getting started on this reading. Maybe you should remind them to annotate the reading or something, so they can stay more focused? Or start them off on the reading as a class?”  

“I’ve taught them so many times how to annotate, so they should know what to do.”

“Hmm, but I don’t really see them annotating right now, do you?”
 
At the risk of being a nudge, I feel compelled to point this out as the students were not moving forward with the reading and seemed stuck. He agreed that he should say something.

“Okay everyone, you all should be annotating. Take out a pen or pencil and annotate like we have done before.”

This evolves into several students raising their hand because they need a pen, and the teacher lamenting over lending out pens and never getting them back. A quarter of the period has passed, and no one is reading or learning more about weather and climate. 

Once everyone had a pen or pencil, the class appeared more settled, and their attention was back on the papers. What I noticed though, is most students jumped right to answering the questions instead of reading first. I wondered, is that okay? Is the purpose of this class to answer the questions, or to learn about the content through reading, and to use the questions as a check for understanding?  

When I met with the teacher later, we discussed again how he had shown them how to annotate a few times — I was even there for a lesson where he modeled annotating on the projector! So why isn’t this clicking?
 
He has shown them what to do, but when it’s their turn to actively read and annotate, there is a disconnect. 

Annotation is not a magical skill, but it is a way to encourage students to read actively and stay focused on the reading. This is increasingly important as content area standardized tests include more and more reading passages, and if students can understand the reading, then they can have access to being a more successful student. Aside from assessments, exposing students to reading in all subject areas and asking them to practice active reading skills can increase their comprehension skills, which is a building block for critical thinking. 

Of course, asking high school students to read anything is often met with a healthy dose of pushback. Americans read less and less each year. According to the National Literacy Institute, in 2024, 54% of adults had a literacy level below sixth grade, and 60% of behavioral issues in school happen when students are asked to read because of their low literacy skills. But while we might be met with resistance, this does not mean we give up on the skill of teaching reading and annotating; we have to keep at it, be creative, and continue to encourage students to actively read.

The frustrating aspect of this particular lesson is that the pre-reading hook was wonderful! Students were engaged by the climate change videos and trying to identify our school and places in their neighborhood within the sea rising graph. Even with their raised interest, you could almost hear a collective whomp whomp when the reading and questions handout were distributed.

​So what can we do to ease this transition, even after the pre-reading hook is so effective? Reading is too important of a life skill to give up on; beyond state and national assessments, it is a skill that can open doors and empower people. 

Meeting with this teacher after class, we discussed the following moves the next time he starts with a great hook and transitions into a content-heavy reading: 

1. If students aren’t engaging with the reading, it’s important to notice this and take action. When students all suddenly need to use the bathroom or put their heads down or start trying to poke their neighbors, it’s time to regroup and redirect.
2. Students may need help getting started. If they do, maybe read aloud and think aloud the very first sentence to get them started. “It looks like we are having a hard time getting started. I’m going to show you how I started off reading this passage and what I jotted down in the margins, and why I jotted it down...” Share your thinking and explore how the title of the text and the image (if there is any) will help you make predictions or ask questions about the text. While reading the first sentence or two, share any questions, connections or wonderings you have just from that first sentence. This will show your students what actively reading this text looks like, and this brief model may be able to get them started. 
3. Strong readers create a purpose for reading so they know what to look for and notice as they read. It might be worth checking with students what they think they will be looking for or noticing in the reading before they begin, and what keywords are associated with that lens. In the earth science class I was visiting, for instance, students could have adopted a lens in the reading for what causes climate change, and how can individuals slow the process or prevent it?  
4. If you notice students are beginning to read and annotate, take a moment for positive narrations, such as, “I love how Damian is writing in the margins and using arrows to make connections to other sentences and images.
5. If students are stuck and not reading, open it up to pair read. There is no age limit to pair reading, which includes taking turns reading the text aloud, discussing it by restating what was understood, and/or asking each other to clarify any confusing moments. Sheridan Blau, one of our esteemed professors in the English Education department at Teachers College, reminds us that “reading is a social activity.” When students engage with a text and help each other intellectually make meaning, they will practice and grow their literacy and thinking skills.  

Even when a lesson starts off with deep curiosity, the transition to reading may still be bumpy. Address this with your students, and try any of the strategies listed above. We want our students to be active and thoughtful citizens, so let’s continue building their literacy skills, even if it requires some reteaching or regrouping. Just as it is worth combating climate change and making adjustments to mitigate this issue, practicing and improving students’ reading in all subject areas is worth fighting for. 

Creativity is a mindset, and every student can tap into it — no special talent required.

When we picture creativity, we often imagine talented dancers floating across a stage or gifted painters filling a wall with flashes of incredible color. Our CPET team believes that creativity is the beautiful capacity to make something from nothing, and our research-based Global Mindset Framework — which explores 21st century skills across five mindsets, each articulating capacities that research suggests will be the most valuable and valued skills in the future — centers a Creative mindset as one of five essential areas to nurture in students. 

All classrooms can be hubs of creativity when we reframe being creative as using our mindset, or how we’re seeing things, as opportunities to make something new. If this is exciting to you and you’re already doing it, share widely with your colleagues to make your practices more common! If this is new to you or sounds challenging to include in your every day, here are a few simple, practical ways to get creative in your classroom. 

​Most content areas involve some kind of visuals to examine, and Visual Thinking Strategies offers a quick, clean framework that sparks an open-ended discussion about an image that often generates ideas among a group of students. Put up an image, and ask the three questions below (with wait time and opportunities for young people to respond in between):

• What is going on in this picture?
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What more can we find? 

This simple strategy has young people making claims (what’s going on in this picture?) and supporting them with evidence (what do you see that makes you say that?) every time you use it. Even more — it encourages divergent thinking and alternative interpretations (what more can we find?) in an open-ended way that keeps students excitedly talking until you choose to wrap up the discussion. 

​Agency is a powerful motivator for young people. Menus, or Choice Boards, provide opportunities for students to select how they’d like to show what they know. For instance, after reading a novel together as a class, a Choice Board might include options such as:

• Writing an essay
• Creating a Canva presentation
• Eulogizing one of the characters
• Writing a letter to the author
• Engaging in a Fishbowl discussion with other students
• Creating a video about the novel

or many, many other creative ways to demonstrate learning. 

A modification of Choice Boards, Menus, allows you to keep the traditional assessment core, if you need everyone to complete one common assessment. In this modification, everyone needs to choose the main dish, or the entree, but there is choice for the appetizer and dessert. For example, if, after reading a novel, it’s important that everyone complete an essay about it, make the essay the entree and allow choice in smaller assessments, like sketching your favorite scene from the novel or painting your favorite setting as an appetizer and making a soundtrack to accompany the novel or dressing and acting as the author as a dessert. Choice Boards encourage engagement, autonomy, and creativity and open up ways of showing mastery. 

​One great way to learn an entire toolkit of these strategies is through our Literacy Unbound initiative, which works with students and teachers to reimagine challenging, classic texts through multiple modalities, allowing greater access to and understanding of texts.

A few tools we use which you can try right now: 

• Character Panels: students act as/play various characters in the novel (or historical time period, etc.) and interact with each other in character, and/or sit at the front of the room and answer questions from the readers (other students/the audience).
• Polaroids: students create an image of a concept or process (in any subject area!) in small groups, entering the image one person at a time, so the picture develops slowly (like a Polaroid) and the observers/audience (other students) caption it, or ask questions.
• Teach Someone Else: students create a short skit through which they teach key concepts and/or vocabulary of a given topic (in any subject area). It’s especially helpful if students imagine their audience for the skit as younger students who need to learn about the topic since this prompts them to distill and streamline what might otherwise be complicated to understand (bonus: if you have access to younger students, they can actually go and teach them the concept or topic)!

​Creativity is a process of using our original thought or our imaginations to make something new. You don't need special gifts or talents — everyone can be creative! In our classrooms, we can nurture this belief by giving students space to explore their natural creativity, helping them develop skills that prepare them for the 21st century.

How human-centered responses guide students toward clearer, more purposeful communication.

Why did assigning an authentic audience fail to produce effective arguments? This article — the fourth in the Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI series — argues that writing is a social transaction where feedback should prioritize relational connection and rhetorical empathy, as defined by scholars like Flower and Moffett. The practical takeaway is the use of relational response to shift the reader’s role from evaluator to human reader.

​I thought I had it figured out.

For our argumentative writing unit, I assigned a clear, authentic audience: our school leadership. Students would write arguments about something they wanted changed—from cafeteria policies to classroom technology—directly to the people who could enact that change from their own perspectives and citing evidence. This, I assumed, would frame writing as thinking and authentic identity building. 

As is often the case in teaching, I was proven wrong.

When the drafts came in, I was shocked. The language was off the mark. Arguments demanding a new grading system used the casual, pleading tone of a text message; proposals for mental health support were full of unexplained jargon the busy administrators wouldn't wade through. My initial frustration was overwhelming: Why didn't they use the proper conventions for this genre? Then, I realized the disconnect. My students knew what they wanted to say, but they didn't know how to say it convincingly to that audience. They knew little about the genre of institutional argument or what their school leadership would find persuasive. What would be convincing? More importantly, how had others written successful arguments in this context?

If writing is only ever aimed at an assessor, it becomes sterile. I suggest we shift the focus from evaluation to conversation—from isolating the writer to connecting them with a genuine human audience.

Writing, at its core, demands a social transaction. It requires the writer to move beyond "writer-based prose"—writing that only makes sense to the person who wrote it—and towards "reader-based prose." Linda Flower introduced this concept (Flower, 1979), explaining that reader-based prose is where the writer actively anticipates and negotiates with the needs and expectations of their audience. This negotiation compels a writer to make a series of conscious choices—about tone, evidence, and structure—deeply defined and rooted in what they know about another person.

James Moffett underscores this, arguing that discourse is fundamentally an act of "I talking to you about it" (Moffett, 1981). The “I” refers to the writer, the “you” the audience, and the “it” the subject of their writing. In this way, Moffett suggests that all writing is a negotiation between author, audience, and purpose. Furthermore, Janet Emig cautioned that when writing is detached from real purpose, students simply mimic tone, not truly developing their voice as writers (Emig, 1977).

Some suggest a teacher cannot be an authentic writing audience because the role of "teacher" often means "evaluator." However, this perception overlooks the reality that teachers are often deeply human figures in students' lives. If we redefine our role—responding as human beings who engage with the ideas, rather than just as judges who assess adherence to a rubric—we absolutely can be that deeply human, authentic audience. If we re-anchor the writing task in a context where the audience matters, we give students the tools to understand who they are writing to and what they value.

As my prior articles established, writing is fundamentally about thinking and building identity. Extending this, feedback shouldn't just focus on sharpening critical thinking or correcting conventions; it should also serve as a crucial site for social-emotional learning (SEL) and human connection.

In the digital age, AI tools can efficiently provide feedback on mechanics, clarity, and structural consistency. However, what makes human feedback unique is the point of social and emotional connection and the authentic human reader experience. AI can assess rules; it cannot tell the writer, "This made me laugh aloud," or "I connected to this deeply because it reminded me of this event from my own life."

Relational feedback moves beyond the rubric to share the actual, personal experience of the reader, thereby facilitating SEL competencies like relationship skills and social awareness. When a reader shares their personal response, they are modeling empathy and validating the writer's humanity. Research on response-based feedback—feedback that privileges the reader's experience and response over institutional critique—confirms its power in helping writers revise their work more effectively because they are responding to a real communication breakdown rather than an abstract rule (Elbow, 1998). 
​
I use this model in my own college courses, giving most writing feedback in the genre of letters of response, a pedagogy inspired by Ruth Vinz. I've already observed increased engagement, assignment completion, and voluntary student responses—often because I've posed genuine conversation questions within my letters. I'm currently analyzing this data for formal publication, but the initial findings strongly suggest that treating feedback as a human conversation yields better results than treating it as a final judgment. Other research supports this: Nancy Sommers found that student writers often ignore comments that aren't integrated into a broader, holistic response (Sommers, 1982).

Even without the time or capacity to write full letters to students, this mode of relational feedback centers on the writing's impact, using phrases like:

• "I re-read this and laughed aloud; your voice really shines here."
• "This helped me to see a new perspective. I think what you're saying here is..."
• "I struggled to understand your point here... Could you clarify this idea for me, a reader who hasn't experienced or read what you have?"
• "This reminded me of a time in my own life when... I connected deeply to that feeling."
• "What if you tried this? I suggest it because I know this about the school leadership... what do you think?"

This feedback tells the student: "I see you, and I resonate with your thinking and experiences, but communication requires a bridge." This can also be a mode of feedback that you encourage students to give to one another. 

The goal is to shift the audience from "teacher-as-grader" or “student-as-grader” to "human-as-recipient" and to use feedback to reinforce that human link.

The power of writing is not just in the logic it presents or the identity it reveals, but in the bridges it builds. While AI tools offer valuable assistance with mechanics, they cannot replicate the relational feedback that fosters empathy and authentic connection. When we teach writing with a genuine audience, armed with the lessons from mentor texts, and commit to relational feedback, we redefine the teacher's role and move beyond “school assignments.” We equip students with the rhetorical empathy to recognize the person on the other side of the page and adjust their voice and choices accordingly. This focus on connection is one of the most profound skills we can teach in a world increasingly starved for meaningful relationships. 

Capture each student’s thinking with fast, effective formative checks.

​In the article Designing Great Hinge Questions, Dylan Thomas outlines four principles that make Hinge Questions — questions that serve as checks for understanding, often at a lesson’s midpoint — meaningful and effective. 

To me, the principle of “elicit a response from every student” really stands out, both for its importance and the challenge it presents. Even the most veteran teachers amongst us have fallen into the trap of hearing from a few enthusiastic students in response to a question or task, and thinking, “okay great, everyone is with me!” It can be easy to conflate the responses of a few with the status of the entire class. 

But, how do we truly hear from everyone, without wasting the entire class period? Balancing this need to capture all students with efficiency is tricky. Here are four tools — from low tech to high tech — that invite all students to opt in:

​How it works: When the hinge question is in a multiple choice format, students use their fingers to indicate the choice that best answers the question. For example, students hold up one finger to indicate choice one, two fingers to indicate choice two, etc. 

Benefits: This method requires no additional materials and can be implemented in a short amount of time. This is a great option for when teachers realize mid-lesson that they are unsure of students’ readiness for what is coming next in the plan, and they want to facilitate a spur-of-the moment check for understanding. 

Potential drawbacks: With this method, there are limitations to the type of question that can be posed. Furthermore, there is no record of student responses to which you can refer later (unless the teacher is taking notes, which can slow things down). 

​How it works: Each student is given a Post-it note, on which they write their response to a hinge question. Students can either put the Post-it note in a visible place on their desk, which the teacher(s) circulate to read, or students may place their post-it note on the board or in a predetermined place in the room. 

Benefits: This is a great low-tech option for when a hinge question is best answered with a sentence or two (rather than a closed response format such as multiple choice). Some students might appreciate the tactile nature of the approach, as well as the opportunity for movement when used in combination with a “parking lot.” The manipulative nature of Post-its can also be of great benefit from the teacher’s perspective, especially if students’ responses are being used to create strategic groups; the post-its can be moved around in order to visualize who might benefit from working together. 

Potential drawbacks: Some teachers might find it overwhelming to organize and make sense of potentially 20-30 individual pieces of paper on the spot, especially if they are the sole educator in the room. 

​How it works: Within Google Workspace, teachers can use a range of question formats (short answer, multiple choice, likert scale, etc.) 

Benefits: The technology makes it very easy to quickly recognize whole class trends through visual representation of the data, while simultaneously allowing for the collection of individualized student data (as long as there is a question asking for their name!). Data is also automatically archived if you wish to review it again after class. 

Potential drawbacks: Google Forms are a great, straightforward choice if students are already accessing technology during the lesson. However, if it is the only digital element of the lesson, the time it can take to start up devices and get to the link might be too disruptive to the flow of the learning. Same goes for tools like Formative, Nearpod, and Peardeck. 

​How it works: Plickers is a free online platform designed specifically for this type of formative assessment. Teachers use Plickers to prepare and present their hinge questions, and assign each student a card number. Students are then provided with a card (which can be printed for free from the website) and answer the question through the orientation of the card (each orientation corresponds with one of the answer choices). 

Benefits: Like the other digital tools mentioned, Plickers updates teachers on student responses in real time, and also captures individual student data to be considered later on. However, a unique benefit to Plickers is that while it seems high tech it actually integrates more seamlessly into a low-tech environment; students don’t need their own device. 
 
Potential drawbacks: To new users, the system can seem complicated at first, and learning and managing a new set of procedures can be overwhelming for students and teachers alike. As with any new tool or technology, teachers can expect a bit of a learning curve. 

​While Thomas’s Hinge Question principles are widely applicable, there is no single “best” way to check for everyone’s understanding; the right tool depends on the moment, the content, and the students in front of you. Whether it's a quick finger vote or more tech-based tool like Plickers, what matters most is the commitment to hearing from every student. Not only does this help us gather better data, but students get the message that their thinking matters to you. 

Turn writing tasks into mirrors where students see themselves.

Why did a standard analytical prompt lead students to declare, "This is boring"? This article — the third in the Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI series —argues that voice and choice are essential because writing is a means of self-affirmation and identity construction, as articulated by scholars like Rudine Sims Bishop and Mary Ryan. Practical strategies include designing prompts that invite the self, offering a menu of modalities and genres, and using personal narrative to experiment with voice.

​“Analyze at least three author's choices and how they shape a theme in the text.”

Students nodded, recognizing the prompt. Some immediately sketched three boxes on their paper, planning to “fill in” the author’s choices they would explore.

Then, the inevitable: “This is boring.”

As a K-12 writing teacher, I sometimes feel that my curriculum's structure, while necessary for meeting standards like the Next Generation Standards, can at times guide students into rather narrow pathways. My internal monologue becomes so driven by these standards, unceasing: Well, I need to ensure students grasp figurative language so they can analyze authorial choices. That goal naturally calls for stronger close reading skills, and in order to close read then students will benefit from targeted vocabulary instruction, and to teach that I’ll need to…

In my effort to anticipate student needs, align to standards, and ensure skilled instruction, I can sometimes forget the actual student experience of reading and writing. Hearing, “This is boring,” was painful, yet it served as an important moment of reflection for me. “They’re right,” I realized. “This is boring.” If I was being honest, I dreaded grading those assignments before students even started writing them, anticipating checking off the same three literary devices repeatedly.

I'd find that initial prompt just as boring as my students do. I enjoy authors’ choices and themes most as they relate to me. An author who writes about love or loss, a dissolving friendship, a difficult social order, or a hopeful engagement with the natural world sparks my interest. I want to discuss and write about those pieces because they reflect myself or something that feels like it exists in my world. I want to explore my connection to the theme, how our world might benefit from it, and how I might adopt the author's choices in my own work. Writing itself becomes a place of agency and choice that lets me explore what I care about most.

Now, returning to my students who we left bored at the beginning of this article — imagine how different the writing process becomes when we pose this question:

“What’s one message the author communicates, and who in your life would benefit from hearing it? Write to whoever that is: yourself, your team, your friend group, or your school leadership. As you explain your thinking, include some of the author’s choices and how those help communicate the theme.”

This idea isn't new. Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop's famous "windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors" metaphor captures this perfectly:

​Writing that stems from an authentic prompt encourages us to imagine, reflect, and self-affirm. These invitations engage students because the individual both shapes and is called upon by the writing task.

Writing offers a pathway to explore and construct personal voice and identity. When we invite students to write from memory or personal narrative, they build authorship. They write from within, not just toward a grade, and learn to value their own perspective. If student writing sometimes lacks voice or sounds generic, the question becomes what and how we invite them to write. Does the prompt itself invite individual perspective?

I acknowledge that students still need to master the skills required by the first, more traditional prompt, especially for standardized assessments. Nonetheless, my revised prompt—which asks students to choose an audience and explain the message's relevance—still requires identifying and analyzing the author's choices. But it also invites student voices. While it can’t be every prompt, it can certainly be some. Perhaps most? 

Writing scholarship strongly supports this approach. Student motivation to write increases when they perceive relevance and have voice and choice (Pink, 2011). When students see a purpose beyond the teacher’s gradebook, they engage more deeply. Furthermore, Mary Ryan (2014) argues that teaching writing as a series of decisions about how to represent their subject matter and themselves through language helps shape and represent students’ identities. 

In the context of new technologies, recent studies involving generative AI, such as Chan & Hu (2023), show students’ perceived concerns about how AI might misrepresent their individual values and/or cause harm to their teacher-student relationships. This perception suggests that students themselves recognize writing as a place for personal value exploration and relational connection — for that reason, they worry about how generative AI might misrepresent them or the things they care about, negatively impacting their relationships with their teachers. 

In a time when many young people feel disempowered, writing remains one of the few places where they can explore their experiences, shape their narratives, and be heard. 

​How, then, do we support identity building as teachers of writing? How do we create student engagement and spark curiosity? How do we support students’ identity building through voice and choice? 

1. Design Prompts that Invite the Self
Consider: Am I creating opportunities for students to explore their own values and experiences in response to a text, rather than just summarizing it? Instead of asking students to analyze the setting's role in a story, I might ask: "Write about a place in your life where you felt the same sense of isolation or belonging that the main character felt. How did that place influence your choices? Connect that to the setting of this text." These prompts require analysis while grounding the response in the student's personal landscape.

2. Offer a Menu of Modalities and Genres for Response
Consider: How might I expand options beyond the five-paragraph essay to value choice in form? If an author's message is particularly impactful, a student might express their response best through a podcast script, a graphic novel panel, or a narrative poem. Allowing students to choose the medium based on their strengths and the message's nature validates their communication skills and encourages stylistic flexibility.

3. Use Personal Narrative and Experiment with Voice
Consider: How can I use personal narrative assignments as a laboratory for trying on different author's styles and voices? After reading a strong memoirist (like Kincaid or Sedaris), I ask students to retell a personal story twice: once in their natural voice and once "in the style of" the author they just read, focusing on devices like sentence length, humor, or tone. This active imitation helps students discover their own voice by showing what happens when they play with different authorial choices.

​The frustration I felt grading those three-box analysis prompts stemmed from their failure to recognize the student as an individual. When we reduce writing to a mechanical checklist, we disconnect it from identity, the very source of its power.

We can meet curriculum goals—analyzing craft, theme, and evidence—while empowering students to see themselves in the texts they read and write. As Rudine Sims Bishop reminds us, literature offers a mirror. Our pedagogy can ensure writing functions as a tool for self-authorship. By offering choices in prompt design, genre, and modality, we move beyond compliance. We ask students to invest their voice, experience, and perspective.

This investment is the personal rhythm that distinguishes human writing from AI-generated text. By prioritizing voice and choice, we not only boost motivation and engagement but also give students a vital platform to name their experiences and actively shape their narratives. The most meaningful writing education doesn't just teach how; it teaches students why their voice matters.
​

What we believe shapes what we do — and in schools, every action matters.

As teachers, coaches, and leaders, our beliefs can define and delineate what we see as possible to achieve. 

What does this mean for our work? We begin with naming and examining our beliefs, because if we want to see positive transformation in our schools, we have to truly believe in reimagining what’s possible. Then, we can follow our beliefs with aligned actions that uplift our classrooms, our schools, our networks, our districts, our communities, our cities, and our world. 

I believe education is the catalyst and the vehicle for a better, brighter world. I believe in relentless optimism, creativity, ambition, and problem solving, and ultimately, in transformative change. I believe that we have a duty to nurture and challenge young people to do and be anything they want to do and be; to open doors for themselves; to shape the world in which we live. I believe in preparing young people for a world that needs them.

I believe in the power and impact of our schools and in systematically supporting leaders, teachers, and students toward maximizing their potential. I believe students are the reason for what we do. I believe in student voice, choice, agency, and empowerment. I believe young people are the heartbeat of our society and I want every single young person to thrive in just the ways they choose for their lives. 

• Listen to and act on young people’s advice. This is what real “school building” looks like. The wisdom of our students moves us forward. They know exactly what it takes to make schools better and they are our most valuable resource.
• Take care of and revere our teachers. Pour into the folks we have entrusted to spend 8+ hours a day with our children. Partner with their parents and families as the folks who nurture them for the other 8+ hours a day.
• Lead with support and purpose, with strong systems, and with a goal of removing obstacles for teachers and instructional staff.
• Be an active part of the community our students, staff, and families need, opening space for everyone to imagine the school at its brightest and fullest potential.
• Go far beyond the low bar of test proficiency. Bring learning to life through performance- and project-based work: write books, invite real editors, stage musicals, and connect deeply to the real world. Invest fully in each other’s learning and growth.
• And maybe most of all: keep the joy. Joy can exist right alongside rigor — don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You can play music in the hallways, kindergarteners can skip to class, seniors can laugh in group discussion, and your school can still be filled with high expectations. As is the motto of one of my favorite school leaders: we need love, joy, excellence. And we will succeed.

As we move deeper into the school year, take a moment to reflect: what do you believe? And how will you turn those beliefs into aligned action?

From the first day’s uncertainty to the final publishing celebration, discover what really happens inside an SPI project — and why the journey is worth it.

On the first day of my first project with the Student Press Initiative (SPI), and  I was nervous, but excited. I knew what an SPI project was on paper; I had seen examples and walked through the process others had gone through. I had even worked to build out a unit that would follow along with SPI’s core principles — project-based instruction, community of learners, real-world authorship, and celebrating student voice — but, as with most things in life, there were challenges that I never expected (whether I should have is another matter entirely). 

In short, a Student Press Initiative project is a project-based learning experience in which an instructional coach partners with a teacher to guide students through a writing process that culminates in the publication of a professionally bound book. These projects center student voice and often explore personal, cultural, or academic themes that matter to them. The final manuscripts are published, shared, and celebrated at a culminating event — often a publishing party — where each student receives a copy of the book.
​
Now, with more SPI experience under my belt, I’ve come to expect some frequently asked questions from teachers, students, and even school leaders who are curious (and sometimes skeptical) about what this work really looks like in practice. 

One of the main goals of an SPI project is to build students’ confidence and help them see themselves as writers. Often, the motivation of getting to be a published author is enough to encourage them to begin. When I encounter students who think writing is boring, a waste of time, or unnecessary, I must help them find other motivators.

A great first step is tailoring the writing, as much as possible within the unit, to student interests. For example, if the assignment is to write an op-ed, start by getting students to think about what they care about. What interests them? What do they do in their free time? What do they care about? Then, encourage them to research and write from that perspective. Anytime they start to lose motivation, routing them back to their “why” can be a boost. The more we can center and celebrate student voice, the better. Part of my job in the role of Coach is to help take the raw knowledge of your students and find those inroads.

Sometimes, though, you don’t have the ability to give the students that freedom. Maybe they have to write about a book they’ve read in class and “Mr. P, we don’t like any of them. There’s nothing interesting to me here.” Here, redirecting towards emotional or reactive connections with the topic becomes helpful. “Ok, you can’t relate. Why not? What about Romeo bugs you so much? What is so boring about Jay Gatsby?” By pushing into a student’s “why”, they might find that they have more to say than they thought. Emotions then become transformed into their “why” — whether it’s a connection they didn’t realize, or a hate letter to James Joyce (been there, done that).

The most important thing in motivating writing is to help writers find their “why,” beyond “I have to for school.” Once you find that, make it a touchstone. And just as important is creating a space where students can share those “whys” with one another. When students see that their classmates also struggle, take risks, and care deeply about what they’re saying, they begin to feel part of something bigger than just a single assignment. That sense of being in a community of learners — where ideas are exchanged, questions are valued, and voices matter — is what can turn a reluctant writer into a real one. 

In any SPI project, you have at least baseline support from your administration, because they have approved the project. Before the project really takes off, having conversations about the expectations they have of you and your students’ work, the final publication, their level of involvement, etc. are important to the SPI project running smoothly.

For instance, are there any topics that the admin won’t allow students to write about? Anything they feel uncomfortable putting the school’s name on? How involved would they like to be on the project? Would they like to be involved in writing a foreword or afterword? How often would they like to be updated on the project? In what ways?

The more clarity you can have between each other, the easier it will be to address concerns as the project moves forward. An SPI coach can help bridge those tension points and concerns. As observers, we are able to bring an outside perspective to conversations within schools about where concerns are coming from and how to go about it. This should take one more thing off a teacher’s plate and allow them to focus more on the unit at hand!

When you encourage students to write from the heart about topics they care about, there is always a chance that certain topics may come up that are not appropriate for publishing. This doesn’t just have to mean inappropriate content — violence, bullying, etc. — but also personally identifiable or sensitive information. For instance, a student might write about helping a friend through a crisis and name details about the crisis including names, places, and situations. Or a student decides to write about their ongoing mental health struggles, including things they have never shared with anyone else. This is where the drafting process can be incredibly helpful.

First, think about how your framing of an assignment can help preempt some of these issues. The value of real-world authorship often comes into play here — in an SPI project, students aren’t just writing for a grade or a teacher, they’re writing for real readers. That means parents, peers, teachers, and sometimes total strangers will be engaging with their words.

Helping students understand that their writing will live in the world shifts how they think about what to include and how to shape it. Give them guidelines about what it means that a story is theirs; reinforce that any details that are not their own should be withheld or changed to respect the privacy of others. Then, review the writing as you go.

Including time for at least two drafts in your project gives you the chance to read and catch anything before it comes time to publish. Talk to the student one-on-one, emphasizing that their writing itself, or even about these topics, is not the issue, but their safety and their audience are. If possible, work with students to rework or redirect their writing. If it needs to be completely changed, make sure to continually highlight that their writing itself is not the issue, and help guide them to a new topic they love. 

For any project-based learning project, the key is organizing early and often! A student publishing project is very manageable if you begin thinking with the end in mind, thinking through what is needed in order to finish. Like any project-based unit, clarity and planning make all the difference.

Is the students’ work being shared publicly? If so, we need certain permissions and consent. Will students work through  multiple drafts, or just one? Each draft should probably have its own folder. Do I want to write front or back material? Does my administration? You guessed it, another folder! Think through each piece of generated material for your project, and how you would like to store it. The clearer you keep things, the easier putting it all together at the end will be.

​Additionally, making a dashboard for yourself to keep track of things from a birds-eye view is indispensable. Like folders, I like to make a column for each deliverable, student work, and consent forms. This helps me see the overall progress of the process and what specific students or areas of the project need attention. Having this combination of in-depth folders and a zoomed out dashboard is indispensable for keeping organized and helping your project run smoothly!

​This is the best part of any SPI project. As they work through our process, students will:

• Feel more confident in themselves as writers
• Write about topics that are meaningful to them
• Recognize that writing is a tool to help them beyond schoolwork
• Have a published work they can put on resumes and college applications
• Experience writing as a process not a one-and-done task
• Grow trust with themselves and each other

While there will always be new questions that arise as you guide students through this process, each project deepens your understanding and reminds you why this work matters — helping young writers find and share their voices.

In an age of instant answers, help students rediscover writing as a space for uncertainty and growth.

Why do students claim, "I don't have anything to say," when facing a blank page? This piece — the second in the Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI series — argues that writing reluctance often stems from a fixed writing mindset, which fears the uncertainty of "writing into the unknown," a concept advocated by Ruth Vinz. Practical strategies include using low-stakes freewriting, modeling the messy process of composition, and reframing revision as "meaning-making," following the theories of Peter Elbow and Ann Berthoff.

​“I don’t have anything to say.” He leaned back in his chair, arms folded.

I’ve heard variations of this conversation countlessly when students face the task of writing. I used to respond with a spirited, “Yes, you do!,” believing simple encouragement would galvanize their pencil across the page.

My perspective changed in graduate school when I became that student—the one suddenly certain I had nothing to say. I could barely write a few words, and I feared sharing them with peers and professors, even when the topic truly interested me.

In reality, I feared writing into the unknown. Before I began, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I developed a conviction that my idea had to be worthy, interesting, unique, and, most importantly, fully formed before the act of writing could begin. Writing, in this view, came after the thought, as if words were a precious, exhaustible resource. I needed to conserve them until a brilliantly complete idea struck me; only then could I write.

Part of that fear undeniably stemmed from how others might perceive my unknown--What if they think I’m foolish? That my idea is flawed? That my perspective is lacking and, by extension, that I am lacking?

"I don’t have anything to say [so I won’t start. I don’t know what I’ll say, it might be bad, and others might judge my ideas. If I don't write, I maintain control and avoid judgment]."

​Writing this piece, I hear the voices of several scholars who want to enter the conversation.

Carol Dweck is knocking most aggressively. Years ago, I learned about her concept of the growth mindset, yet I never connected it to writing reluctance until now, as I engage in the act of writing itself. Dweck argues for two mindsets: growth and fixed. The preferred growth mindset maintains that intellect continuously changes and grows through effort and experience. The fixed mindset, however, holds that intelligence is, well, fixed. We see her research popularized everywhere, with anchor charts urging students to view intelligence as mutable through effort.

In retrospect, my fear to begin writing stemmed from a fixed mindset. I believed an idea was either good or bad, resulting in good or bad writing. Writing could be revised, but the idea's first impression was everything—it was either formed or unformed. Dweck’s work emphasizes that those with fixed mindsets fear failure and uncertainty because it suggests an absence of intelligence, a trait you either possess or you don't. Similarly, I held what I might call a fixed writing mindset: I either had good ideas or I didn’t, and others' perceptions defined them.

The second person awaiting an entrance is Ruth Vinz, the founder of the Center for the Professional Education of Teachers (CPET). Vinz’s work advocates for writing into the (un)FOR-see-able, into that which cannot yet be seen. Writing is an act of becoming, of exploring, of encountering, not a mere tool to present, explain, analyze, and assess what has been learned. 

I also hear Ann Berthoff's words, recently read aloud by a colleague: “We don’t have ideas that we put into words; we don’t think of what we want to say and then write. In composing, we make meanings. We find the forms of thought by means of language, and we find forms of language by taking thought.”

With generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and Google Gemini easily accessible, supporting writing as a process of thinking—of making meanings through composing—is more imperative than ever. If students believe good ideas pre-exist the act of writing, their logic may follow that a prompt can give them objectively good ideas without struggle, uncertainty, or risk.

Through this lens, generative AI tools are the ultimate development for the fixed (writing) mindset: the ultimate cheat code to bypass the judgment of one’s own efforts or intelligence, and therefore never to be found lacking. Generative AI provides the illusion of a finished structure without ever requiring the user to lay the foundation. It acts as a set of polished scaffolding that reassures students a perfect building exists, without them having to engage in the actual, risky labor of construction. The root is not laziness or resistance, but the fear from a fixed mindset.

​How, then, do we intervene as teachers of writing? How do we embrace a growth-minded writing process? We must support our students in understanding that writing is a way of meaning-making, a process where ideas develop over time through reflection and revision.

​Our work as educators now requires us to look past the surface-level resistance of "I don't have anything to say" and address the underlying fixed writing mindset that generates fear and uncertainty.

​By intentionally fostering low-stakes environments, modeling the productive messiness of writing into the unknown, and reframing revision as intellectual growth, we can help students move beyond the temptation of AI shortcuts and the paralyzing fear of judgment. We can empower them to recognize that the blank page isn't a performance space for a pre-existing idea, but rather a vital engine for discovery—the essential place where they actively make their own meanings and, in the process, grow into their best ideas and selves. 
​

Anchor writing in what AI can’t replace: human thought, voice, and connection.

If generative AI can write well enough, what is the value of teaching writing? This year-long series establishes that the core values of thinking, identity, and connection must be our anchors for teaching writing and for discerning the ethical and pedagogical role of AI tools. This framework is exemplified by the CPET Student Press Initiative (SPI), a long-standing model that validates student voice through authentic publication.

She leaned in, a look of concern clouding her face, and whispered: “I’m just starting to feel like there is no point teaching writing anymore.” She gestured toward the pile of laptops, chargers, and tablets between us. “All this—this is the future.”

Her words didn't just linger; they echo the anxiety spreading through our professional communities. If artificial intelligence can generate a passable essay with a simple prompt and click, what is the enduring value of our craft? Writers like Stephen Marche declared “The College Essay is Dead” (The Atlantic, 2022), and many of us report feeling less like facilitators of original thought and more like editors of machine-generated text (Wang, 2024).

The question repeats everywhere, sharp and unsettling: “Why does teaching writing matter anymore?”

This series--Teaching Writing in the Age of Generative AI—starts by confronting that question head-on. We'll explore how generative AI is reshaping education and, more importantly, how it forces us to clarify and champion the most essentially human parts of our work as teachers. This exploration will blend personal classroom stories, foundational theory, emerging research, and writing practices and principles you can use in your classroom tomorrow. 

But before we tackle the ambiguities and uncertainties of new technologies, this series will explore some core beliefs about writing and what these mean for our practice: 

1. Writing is Thinking: It's the primary, sometimes messy, tool we use to wonder, struggle, and make meaning, allowing us to clarify complex ideas and build deep, critical thought.
2. Writing is Identity Building: It gives us the vital space to sound like ourselves and explore who we are becoming, helping shape individual voice and self-authorship.
3. Writing is Human Connection: It's the relational act of reaching out to say what only we can say to someone real, creating bridges of empathy and understanding.

This human-centered philosophy of teaching writing isn't new; it's the foundation of effective pedagogy, exemplified by the our Student Press Initiative (SPI). SPI's decades-long work has redefined writing instruction by prioritizing authentic purpose and audience through student-authored publications.
​
The SPI process directly reflects these values of authentic thinking, identity building, and human connection. SPI requires students to produce a meaningful final product (a published book or media), compelling them to wrestle with content and synthesize complex information—not just report it. It emphasizes the publication process as a means to amplify every student's unique voice, ensuring their personal perspectives and experiences are valued, permanent, and publicly acknowledged. And, by connecting students to authentic audiences (like community members or incoming classes), SPI expands the purpose of writing far beyond the teacher's gradebook, creating genuine engagement and responsibility.

The rise of AI compels us to reexamine the value of writing. Generative AI tools may eventually have a role in that process, but these three core values—Thinking, Identity, and Connection—will be our anchors for discerning their use. They help us define our purposes as teachers of writing and, therefore, provide the truest measure for ethical engagement. Our definitions of "ethical" use must be continually discerned through reflection on these core values about writing, its value, and its purposes, not through abstract rules or simple lists.
​
The tools may change, but this part — the fundamentally human part — stays the same. And that’s where I think we ought to begin.
​

See resistance as a doorway, not a dead end, and guide teachers toward meaningful change.

I remember one of my very first coaching experiences. I was matched with a phase-out school—once a vibrant and beautiful community now deemed “unfixable” and winding down its final cohorts of students. As you might imagine, morale was low—not only among teachers, but also among the students.

My charge was to work with the English Department, helping strengthen instruction through the Danielson Framework. I’ll never forget walking into Mr. M’s classroom for the first time. He looked at me with what I can only describe as disdain. If I could read his thoughts, I’m sure they would’ve said something like: Who is this woman walking into my classroom? What could she possibly do for me, at this point?

He didn’t need to say a word—his expression said it all. At first, I felt a mix of fear, hesitation, and even resentment. He doesn’t know me. He clearly needs me for a reason. This doesn’t feel fair. But then I paused and tried to step into his perspective. His school was closing. His students were struggling. He was being judged in a system he no longer trusted. Soon, I could see his resistance not as rejection, but as protection. 

As coaches and leaders, it’s tempting to interpret resistance as defiance. But resistance is often communication in disguise. It can be the outward expression of deeper fears, fatigue, or misalignment.

Resistance can show up in different forms:

• Passive Disengagement: “Sure… I’ll try that.” (But doesn’t.) 
• Defensiveness: “That doesn’t work with my students.”
• Redirection: “What about the other teacher who isn’t doing this?”

And here’s the tricky part: sometimes it shows up as just one of these, but often it’s a combination of all three. A teacher might disengage in one moment, then shift into defensiveness the next. By learning to recognize these patterns, we give ourselves more tools to respond in ways that de-escalate tension rather than amplify it.

Resistance is rarely about the coach sitting across the table. More often, it’s rooted in:

• Fear: Of being judged, of failure, of change
• Fatigue: Burnout, initiative overload, emotional exhaustion
• Misalignment: Between values, priorities, or understanding of goals

Naming these root causes doesn’t excuse resistant behavior—but it does help us understand it. And understanding gives us a better chance at responding productively.

At the same time, recognizing resistance isn’t just about identifying what’s underneath; it’s also about noticing the ways it shows up in the moment. The sigh, the folded arms, the clipped tone, the sudden change of subject—these behaviors are signals. When we can connect the why (root causes) with the how (observable behaviors), we’re better equipped to respond in ways that open dialogue rather than shut it down.

So, let’s look at some examples of what resistance might sound like in practice. We’ll name the type of resistance that’s showing up and consider a coaching question that could help open up the conversation.

Example 1
In the post-observation conversation, you say to the teacher:
“I noticed a lot of note-taking today. I’m wondering how students are making meaning of the content in the moment.”

The teacher responds, visibly tense:
“I don’t have time for all those extra activities. I’m already behind on the pacing guide. This is just what I have to do right now.”

She leans back in her chair, arms crossed, and glances at the clock.
> Type of Resistance: Defensiveness

As the coach, I might ask something like: “I hear how much pressure you’re feeling with pacing. If time weren’t an issue, what kind of student learning would you ideally want to see in this lesson?”
​

Example 2
You share with the teacher:
“I noticed a lot of students were directing their responses to you. I’m curious—what are some ways we might create more opportunities for students to respond to each other?”

Ms. James shifts in her seat, arms folded, and replies sharply:
​
“I already tried small group discussions last year, and it didn’t work with this group. They’re not capable—they go off-task, they get loud, and nothing gets done. Honestly, I don’t want to waste time on strategies that just make things worse.”
> Type of Resistance: Redirection + Defensiveness (a blend)

As the coach, I might offer something like: “It sounds like you’ve had some tough experiences with small groups. Can you tell me more about what worked and what didn’t when you tried it? That might help us think about adjustments together.”

By pairing the type of resistance with a curious, nonjudgmental question, we acknowledge the teacher’s experience while also keeping the door open for dialogue and growth.

The next time you encounter resistance, pause before pushing forward. Consider what it might be telling you. Sometimes it’s one form of resistance. Sometimes it’s all of them at once. But always, something important is at stake. When we treat resistance not as a wall but as a doorway, we open up possibilities for trust, growth, and meaningful change.