By a writing teacher, homeschool mom, and lifelong believer in the slow, sacred work of shaping a sentence

“…writing stories, scenes, and portraits is a very inductive process and will lead you to new insights and new points of view you couldn’t reach by reasoning alone.”

Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers. Oxford University Press, 1973.

Let’s Be Honest: AI Is Already Here

Whether you’re a college professor grading a wave of suspiciously perfect essays, or a homeschool mom wondering if your teen’s “original” short story came straight from ChatGPT, one thing is clear: artificial intelligence is no longer some distant tech buzzword—it’s already shaping how our students learn to write.

And that brings up big questions. Questions like:

• Is it cheating to use AI in writing class?

• Can students still find their voice if they’re using machine-generated words?

• What is the actual purpose of teaching writing in the first place—and does that change in an AI-powered world?

As a writing teacher, homeschooler, and AI-aware educator, I’ve been living in the tension between caution and curiosity. I’ve tested the tools, read the studies, and watched students use (and misuse) AI in both classrooms and kitchen tables.

And here’s what I’ve learned: AI doesn’t have to ruin writing education. But it could—if we let it.

What Are We Really Teaching When We Teach Writing?

Before we can evaluate AI, we need to step back and examine what writing education is even for. Over the years, educators have wrestled with three core purposes:

1. Writing as Communication

This is the most familiar lens. Writing is a skill—like driving or public speaking—that helps you express your ideas clearly and correctly. If this is your primary goal, AI might seem like a gift. It can fix grammar, tighten sentences, and offer synonyms in seconds. It’s like having a never-tired editor on call.

2. Writing as Thinking

This view runs deeper. It says writing isn’t just how we share our thoughts—it’s how we form them. You’ve probably experienced this yourself: you sit down with a vague idea, but somewhere between paragraph two and paragraph five, you discover what you actually believe. That kind of discovery can’t be outsourced. If students use AI to skip that process, they’re skipping the point.

3. Writing as Identity

Here, writing becomes a way of becoming. It’s how students grow in confidence, explore their beliefs, and share their unique voice. It’s deeply personal. Which raises this question: what happens when a machine mimics your voice better than you can? What happens when kids start to believe that their real writing isn’t good enough—and the bot’s version is better?

The Promises of AI in Writing Education

Let’s not pretend AI has no place in writing instruction. It absolutely can help—when it’s used with purpose, guardrails, and human oversight.

Here are some of the real benefits of using AI in a thoughtful writing curriculum:

AI can be a scaffold—not a shortcut.

• Stuck on how to start? Ask ChatGPT to generate five opening hooks. Then evaluate and rewrite them.

• Need help organizing ideas? Let AI build a rough outline from your messy notes—and teach students to refine it.

It can support neurodiverse learners.

Students with ADHD, dyslexia, or executive function challenges may find writing overwhelming. AI can reduce friction, offering structure and starting points so they can stay focused on the ideas—not get lost in the format.

In my own life, chronic Lyme disease has slowly chipped away at my ability to write with the clarity and consistency I once had. What used to come easily—stringing words together, shaping ideas on the page—has become a harder, slower process.

But AI has helped me bridge that gap. It hasn’t replaced my voice—it’s helped me find it again, offering the kind of support that makes writing feel possible on the days when my body and brain say otherwise.

It can level the playing field.

Not every student has a writing tutor. Some homeschool parents are confident teaching Shakespeare, but feel paralyzed when it comes to composition.

AI can offer just-in-time models, feedback, and revision ideas without replacing the student’s thinking.

It invites discussion about authorship and voice.

Used well, AI can spark deeper conversations:

• What makes a piece of writing yours?

• Can you really take credit for something a machine helped create?

• What do you sound like when you’re not trying to sound perfect?

But Let’s Be Clear: There Are Very Real Dangers

We also need to be crystal clear about what’s at stake. AI in the writing classroom—whether in a college lecture hall or around a homeschool co-op table—comes with some serious risks:

It creates the illusion of learning.

When a student turns in an AI-generated essay, they may feel like they’ve mastered the material. But they haven’t.

They’ve skipped the thinking. They’ve bypassed the hard work of clarity, precision, and revision. That’s not just a problem—it’s a hollow kind of success.

It undermines confidence and creativity.

When students compare their raw, imperfect words to AI’s polished paragraphs, they may decide their writing voice isn’t good enough. That’s a lie—and a dangerous one.

We can’t let a machine make our students afraid to sound like themselves.

It can become a crutch.

Just like calculators made long division optional, AI may make deep writing optional, too. But here's the difference: no one ever processed their grief through long division.

Writing shapes hearts and forms minds. We can't afford to lose that.

What Real Teachers Are Seeing (and Wrestling With)

In a now widely circulated piece from LitHub, literature professor Piers Gelly set out to explore a provocative question: What would happen if I handed over parts of my teaching to ChatGPT?

Spoiler: it wasn’t about students becoming lazy or disengaged—it was about opening a deeper classroom conversation.

“Rather than taking an 'abstinence-only approach to AI, I decided to put the central, existential question to them directly: was it still necessary or valuable to learn to write?”

—What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom, Piers Gelly, 2025

Gelly didn’t see students giving up or blindly trusting the tool.

What he saw was a group of learners capable of critical reflection when given space and guidance.

His class didn’t just use AI—they evaluated it. They pushed back. They asked ethical questions.

And in doing so, they walked straight into the heart of what good writing instruction is supposed to do.

Rather than replacing the teacher, AI became a kind of mirror—reflecting both the promise and the limits of automation in deeply human work.

His experiment wasn’t a cautionary tale—it was a call to lead. Because when we treat students like thinkers, they rise to the challenge—even when the robots are in the room.

Practical, Purposeful Ways to Use AI in Writing Instruction

If we want students to think well and write well, AI has to become a tool they’re trained to use, not a shortcut they default to.

Here are practical ways to integrate AI in a way that supports writing—not replaces it:

Reverse Outlining

Have students write a paragraph, then feed it into ChatGPT and ask the bot to identify the main idea of each sentence. This teaches clarity, cohesion, and the importance of structure.

Brainstorming with Boundaries

Use AI to generate five possible titles or thesis statements—but require students to choose, revise, and explain their choice.

Compare and Contrast

Give students an AI-generated essay and a student-written one on the same topic. Ask them to evaluate tone, depth, originality, and voice. Which one actually says something?

Prompt Improvement

Show how AI can be sensitive to vague instructions. Have students improve a bad prompt, then reflect on the difference in output. It teaches them to think like writers and editors.

Reflection First, AI Second

Require students to write by hand their first paragraph or idea before touching AI. This centers the human mind first, then brings in tech as a tool—not a replacement.

What Parents and Professors Both Need to Hear

Whether you’re assigning essays at a university or helping your homeschooler write their first persuasive paragraph, your goal is probably the same as mine:

• You want your students to become thinkers—not just information parrots.

• You want them to write with honesty and clarity, not just polish.

• You want their voice to be heard, not replaced.

AI can support that. But it will never do it for them.

The truth is, writing is slow. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s beautiful. And that’s exactly what makes it valuable.

Let’s not shortcut the struggle. Let’s shepherd our students through it—with grace, with truth, and yes, with tools that help them grow, not hide.

Final Word

AI isn’t the end of writing education.

But it is a reckoning.

It’s forcing us to decide—again—what really matters in how we teach, what we value in student work, and who we’re becoming as a generation of communicators.

If we want our students to write with conviction, to think deeply, to own their learning and discover their voice—then AI must become a tool, not a teacher.

The pen is still powerful. And even in the age of prompts and processors, we still need people who know how to use it.

Referenced Works

• Gelly, Piers. “What Happened When I Tried to Replace Myself with ChatGPT in My English Classroom.” LitHub, 2025. https://lithub.com/what-happened-when-i-tried-to-replace-myself-with-chatgpt-in-my-english-classroom

• Elbow, Peter. Writing Without Teachers. Oxford University Press, 1973.