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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Modeling AI for Authentic Writing

Posted in Change, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2025| 4 Comments »

How I draft, edit, and stay human in the loop

For years I believed my advantage was “writing.” Lately I’ve realized the real edge was not keystrokes, it was ideas, structure, and voice. AI has not erased those. If anything, it has made them more important. Rather than pretend we are still in a pen and paper world, I have been trying to model what authentic writing looks like now.

We do not protect writing by banning the tools everyone already has. We protect writing by showing what thoughtful use looks like, and by being transparent about our process.

What I am hearing, especially in humanities

Last week, a high school English teacher stopped me. “I can tell when something has been AI generated,” he said, “but I cannot tell when they have collaborated with it thoughtfully. And I do not know what to do with that.”

He is not alone. Across our humanities departments, teachers are working on the fly, trying to maintain academic integrity while recognizing that the old gatekeeping moves, ban the tool and police the draft, do not hold when every student has ChatGPT in their pocket. The fear is real. Are we farming out the exact skills we are supposed to be teaching?

I do not think the answer is choosing between integrity and innovation. It is redefining what integrity looks like when the tools have changed.

How I actually write

I still start the old fashioned way, an outline, a thesis, a few proof points, and usually one sentence I think could be the closer. From there, I treat AI like a colleague, not a ghostwriter.

  • Editing help. I ask for a clarity pass, tighten verbs, fix hedging, and check whether my headings are parallel. Here is what I actually typed for this piece: “Revise for clarity and concision. Keep a conversational, hopeful tone similar to my other blog posts. Offer two options for the opening sentence.” I kept one, rejected the other, and moved on.

  • Skeptic check. “What would a fair skeptic say after reading this” It surfaces blind spots before I hit publish.

  • Reports and formatting. For formal documents, I use AI to turn tables into charts, crunch numbers, and reshape dense text into something readable.

  • Speeches. I keep a base grad speech and add school specific stories and names. AI helps blend those elements while keeping the message consistent.

None of this replaces judgment. I accept or reject every change. If a suggestion dulls my voice, it is out. That is the standard. My judgment stays in control. I also disclose what I did, every time. A short note at the end of a post goes a long way with our community and models the behavior we ask of students.

What I encourage for classrooms and staff rooms

The most helpful shift has been moving from “Do not use AI” to “Show your decisions.”

  • Model, then mirror. I demo my messy paragraph, ask AI for a clarity edit, then accept or reject in real time while explaining why. Students should bring their draft, try the same process, and compare choices.

  • Assess the thinking. Rubrics weight claims, evidence, organization, and audience impact, not who placed the comma.

  • Make the process visible. Version histories in Docs or Word, plus brief process notes that list tools used, prompts asked, and choices made, make learning visible and deter abdication of thinking.

  • Cite the workflow. Not to catch people out, but to name steps we can teach.

Guardrails that keep the work honest

  • No blank page outsourcing. Start with your outline, thesis, or key points.

  • Ask precise questions. “Cut 10 percent without losing meaning. Keep my conversational tone.”

  • Verify facts. If AI offers a claim, check it before it lands in public.

  • Always disclose. If a tool shaped meaning or form, say how.

Is this just cheating with better branding

I have never believed collaboration was cheating. When I wrote a newspaper column, my dad, a retired English teacher, was my unofficial copy desk. He proofread, edited, and offered suggestions on every draft. The byline was still mine because the ideas, voice, and final choices were mine.

Tricia Buckley, and before her Sharon Pierce and Deb Podurgiel, all staff in West Vancouver Schools, have read every blog post here before they were published and provided feedback.

AI sits in that same category for me, a helper, not a ghostwriter, and always subject to human judgment. What changed with AI is speed, scale, and availability. I can get feedback at 11 p.m., run ten drafts in twenty minutes, and the tool is always on. What did not change is my judgment, my responsibility for choices and my name on the work.

If the goal is proving you can type unaided, then yes, tools muddy the waters. Our goal in schools is thinking for real audiences. We have always used supports, outlines, spellcheckers, style guides, writing partners, rubrics and colleagues. The standard should be integrity and evidence of learning, not tool abstinence.

Equity

AI is a ramp, not a shortcut.

It helps stuck writers get moving, the student staring at a blank page who needs a sentence to react to, or the English language learner who can articulate ideas verbally but struggles with syntax. AI can generate that first sentence, and suddenly the student has something to revise, reject, or build on. For strong writers, it is a way to go deeper, test alternate structures, get a skeptic to read, or polish a conclusion without losing momentum.

The equity move is not banning tools for everyone. It is teaching how to use them responsibly, and ensuring access to good instruction is not the new dividing line. When we teach tool literacy, we level up. When we ban tools students already have, we make the learning invisible.

Prompts that actually help

  • Clarity pass: “Revise for clarity and concision. Keep a conversational, hopeful tone. Offer two options for the opening sentence.”

  • Skeptic lens: “List the strongest fair minded critiques of this piece and one concrete improvement for each.”

  • Structure check: “Are these headings parallel? Tell me how to fix them without changing the ideas.”

  • Audience flip: “Rewrite the conclusion as guidance to parents in about 120 words.”

  • Report polish: “Turn this table into three plain language insights and a simple chart title. Flag any numbers that look inconsistent.”

What I tell our community

  • We are pro-writing and pro-truth. We will use modern tools and we will say when we did.

  • We value voice. Your voice should be recognizable across drafts and tools.

  • We lead with learning. If a tool helps learning, we will teach it. If it replaces thinking, we will not.

If you want more

Last week I facilitated a Hot Topic discussion, “The Future of Writing in an AI World,” at the Canadian K12 School Leadership Summit on Generative AI. 

North Star

I can spend my time lamenting that writing once felt like my competitive edge, or I can double down on the edge that still matters, clear thinking, vivid stories and the courage to be transparent about how we work. That is the blended human and AI writing world I want to model for students and staff.

The teacher who stopped me in the hallway was right to be uncertain. We are all figuring this out in real time. I would rather figure it out in the open, and model a messy and honest process, than pretend the tools do not exist.

AI transparency note: I drafted this post myself, then used ChatGPT and Claude for a clarity edit and a skeptic read. I accepted some wording suggestions and rejected others to preserve voice. The image at the top of the post was created through a series of prompts using Claude.

 
 

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Still Writing

Posted in Change, SD45, Technology, tagged , , , on February 29, 2024| 3 Comments »

I have been thinking about writing this week. The generative AI discussion is really making people think about what writing might look like in the future. It was less this though, and actually a quote from one of my favourite local writers in the media, that struck a chord with me. Howard Tsumura, who I have written about here before, and I have known and read for more than 30 years had this interesting quote when writing about the challenge of finding new writers to fill his shoes, “there is no issue finding young people who can take photos, shoot video or help broadcast . . .but finding writers even close to the standard of deadline writing with flair is nearly impossible.”

And I will put my biases out there, as someone who still subscribes to several hard copy newspapers, and finds joy in this act of blogging, I am on “team writing.”

In our digital age, where visual content reigns supreme, it’s no surprise that we find an abundance of talented young individuals adept at photography, videography, and broadcasting.  I am so impressed by them in our schools. Their ability to freeze time in a photo or bring an event to life on screen is nothing short of remarkable. These skills are invaluable, and the ease with which students pick up cameras or manage live streams is a testament to their adaptability and tech-savviness.  I have great admiration for them.  I wish I could do more of what they do.  I wish that the posts you read here had more photos and videos to help tell stories and bring my words to life.

However, there’s a different kind of magic in written words – a magic that seems to be fading in the backdrop of high-definition images and live-action videos. The art of writing, especially under the pressure of deadlines and with a flair that captures the reader’s imagination, is a rare find among young individuals today.  This is not to say we don’t have good writers, but sometimes I feel like we have fewer writing storytellers with our young people.  And yes, I know this is all in a world of murkiness now with the ever growing power of generative AI.  Can’t Chat GPT just do this, why do we need to do it?

Writing is not just about stringing words together; it’s about storytelling. It’s about painting a picture so vivid that readers can feel the adrenaline of the moment and it is about conveying the emotions, the passion, and the spirit of the situation in a way that resonates with those who were there and informs those who weren’t.  It is something I have tried to get better at – and I have found that my most read posts here have not been my technical pieces of writing or my opinion pieces, but those times I have been able to tell a story and make you feel like you were actually in our schools or with me on a particular journey.

The challenge lies not in the lack of talent but in nurturing the interest and honing the skills required for this kind of writing. Just as we encourage young photographers to look beyond the lens and videographers to see the story in every frame, we need to inspire young writers to find their voice and use it powerfully.  We can’t say we are producing good writers if we are just producing good technical writers.

In our schools  we must continue to create spaces where writing is celebrated and where young writers feel empowered to explore their creativity. And even at a time when we see traditional print media being some of the worst job security out there, we need to be encouraging students to contribute to school newspapers, blogs, or social media channels.  These can give them a platform to showcase their work and build their confidence.  And while there may not be as many jobs in the future for using words to tell stories as there have been in the past, I am not ready to abandon its importance.

The quest for young writers who can craft stories with style and meet deadlines is not an impossible one. It’s a journey that requires patience, encouragement, and a collective effort to ignite a passion for writing in young people – in schools and our community. As we continue to marvel at the stunning photos and videos that capture the essence of our school events, let’s also strive to find and nurture the writers who can bring those moments to life in words. 

Thanks Howard for the prompt this week.

On the topic of generative AI – I am going to start playing around with using AI generated imaged to accompany my posts.  In the past I have largely used stock photos with some personal photos.  The photo at the top of today’s post was generated by me pasting this blog post into Chat GPT 4.0 and asking it to generate some options of images that could accompany the post.  

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Permission to Write Badly

Posted in Change, tagged , , , , on June 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »

I field a lot of questions about writing. When people read my blog, or see the other ways I write for audiences through my work, they are quick to explain why they can’t do it. In the same sentence they ask about my writing, they also explain “I am not a writer” or “I just don’t have the time” or “I don’t have the patience” or some similar justification for why writing is not for them. And OK, I get it, I have never thought writing for a public audience needs to be for everyone.

But if the conversation goes a little further, I share my number one piece of advice I give to those who write, give yourself permission to write badly.  I have always found the hardest part of writing is to just start.  It is easy to waste away time thinking up ideas.  When we have papers due, all of the sudden we prioritize rearranging the garage because we want to prepare to write well (and procrastinate), and not just start.

I have written previously about my doctoral dissertation.  I just started writing and my first draft of my first three chapters, all 80 pages, was not very good.  But writing badly gave me a starting point and allowed me to write better.  In that case, on the advice of my advisor, I actually started over.  But writing badly, later allowed me to write well.

With my blog, I have hundreds of posts in draft.  I come back to some from time to time, and some will be published at some point.  Having something written down, gives me something to work with.  And even those that make it to publish are often still a work in progress.  This is the beauty of the digital age is that we can go back and still improve already published work.  I have taken a number of these posts and re-purposed them for traditional media – often the AASA School Administrator Magazine.  My version for the magazine is always better than what I publish here.

On a similar vain, I was so interested in Paul Simon’s 2018 album In the Blue Light where he took many of his previously songs and reimagined them.  At the time, I shared more details in My Paul Simon Post, but this is a similar notion that the creative process whether it is written or musical does not need to have a strict end point (though it is hard to argue Bridge Over Troubled Water was not brilliant in its original version).  

I was thinking of this advice on writing badly recently in reading an opinion piece from David Brooks from the New York Times on the Greatest Life Hacks in the World (for now) which included, “When you’re beginning a writing project, give yourself permission to write badly. You can’t fix it until it’s down on paper.”  All of a sudden I feel like I am in really good company!  There are many things from David’s list that I would like to adopt – “If you’re giving a speech, be vulnerable. Fall on the audience and let them catch you. They will.”  Or what was probably my favourite, “If you meet a jerk once a month, you’ve met a jerk. If you meet jerks every day, you’re a jerk.”

So for everyone thinking they can’t start writing because they don’t have the ability to write well, go ahead and write badly and then make it better.  This really works.

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