This is the struggle for readers who are only seeing a single writing sample from students whom we don’t know personally. We’ve never seen other samples so it’s hard to know whether the student is an eloquent writer or is typically lazy or sloppy but is submitting an AI-generated essay for us to review.
How should we proceed? I’m reading in here that improper grammar may be a good thing to leave alone, so as not to poke the AI detectors, but students I work with ask for grammar review. I am not perfect, obviously, so I’m sure there are things I miss but if I intentionally skip over grammar errors, it feels like I would be doing a disservice. I also note when they are using the wrong word to describe something. Are we to leave that alone too?
Most students that I’ve worked with this year have asked if their “voice” is coming through the essay - is that code for I used AI but want to make sure the essay still sounds personal? I’ve seen a lot of good essays this year but none of them read as “cold” or “robotic”.
Has anyone called a student out for a blatant use of AI? Again, because we don’t “know” these students other than a single essay, it seems like a fine line that I’m not qualified to and wouldn’t want to cross.
With my former college counselor hat on, I would still correct grammar. It seems not many colleges are using AI detectors at this point due to unreliability, and other reasons. (Now that I’m on the other side of the desk in admissions, I will say the school I work for doesn’t use AI detectors, and poor grammar in an essay would always be noted.)
I see it reported here on CC by posters, some of whom are also CC essay readers. I also see it on various facebook pages and listservs I’m on that have college counselors (HS and private) posting about how to handle AI usage, what if a student uses it in their essay, etc. Notably many HS counselors are using AI to help them write their LoRs. I expect some teachers are too. Tough to come down hard on students where that may be the case!
I doubt it. Not with the estimated 9 minutes (and I bet that’s a generous estimate) that AOs get for each application. Then again, AI is now being used to review applications, so I suppose you could tell it to flag discrepancies between ACT/SAT subscores and perfect essays. But what incentive do schools have to do this, especially seeing that so many schools are test optional?
But think of the environmental costs of thinking! ChatGPT can write in 1 minute what might take her 5 hours. The brain requires energy: 5 hours of thinking is ~400 calories of food. And that food doesn’t grow itself, package itself, or ship itself across the country.
This, and the fact that a majority of four year colleges accept a majority of their applicants.
Agreed. I know there were signs of grade inflation (in both HS and college) prior to Covid, but Covid accelerated it. That, combined with rampant cheating, broad availability of many AI tools, and many teachers/profs unwilling to hold students accountable has set education on a path that I’m not sure anyone even knows the full set of consequences yet.
I agree that the essay should be readable in terms of grammar and punctuation. There is a huge difference between a missing comma here or an incorrect verb usage there, and someone whose essay has multiple run on sentences, or fragments, lacks paragraphs, muddled syntax, or so much missing or wrongly used punctuation that it’s incomprehensible.
With the use of AI, it’s going to be more difficult to figure out who has good writing skills and who doesn’t. That’s what makes me think colleges (at least selective ones) might give more scrutiny to the EBRW sub score on standardized tests.
AI seems to equalize the field for anyone who uses it. That’s a good thing in some ways. It’s not so good if the writer has no clue and doesn’t care. It’s going to be interesting how colleges and schools are going to adapt to the use of AI.
I don’t know (it’s not currently the case in the admissions process where I work), but will be interesting to see. On the one hand, knowing natty grammar rules and other things tested on ACT/SAT doesn’t necessarily make one a good writer but OTOH it’s one of the relatively more objective measures of a student’s abilities.
With such a powerful writing assistant available to all, I’m not sure the ongoing value of native/learned writing skills. Obviously I know that’s controversial and there are tons of sources on both sides, but personally I see that skill as separate from developing critical thinking skills which is a whole other issue.
AI use in the classroom (K-12 and college) is increasing (in terms of incorporation into lesson plans, allowable use in homework, essays, etc.) AI in the workplace is already commonly used for writing emails, reports, creating powerpoint slides, etc and it’s adoption and importance in said processes is going to continue to increase.
You can’t separate the ability to communicate ideas clearly and cogently from the critical thinking process. The conversation here is focusing on grammar and punctuation—things for which there have been “AI” assistance tools for many years—but what sets good writing (and, to my mind, good thinking) apart is logic flow and organization. Coherent, convincing presentation of ideas is a huge differentiator and requires intrinsic understanding of your topic and argument.
Yes, and no. I refer back to the classic Let’s eat Grandma. Without that comma, the sentence makes no sense. I think understanding that sentences need punctuation IS a critical thinking skill because it’s a means of providing clarity and intent.
I suspect in the next year ot two, educational institutions at all levels are going to have to make some hard decisions about what writing skills need to be taught. We still have to teach kids to read and to understand basic grammar, sentence structure, punctuation and so forth because they will need to understand what they are reading. But to what extent?
Is it possible that there will be a whole new field of study? Using AI in communication or AI and Written English. Will there be a whole new field opening up for English majors who are proficient in AI usage? Wouldn’t that be great!
I suspect in the next year ot two, educational institutions at all levels are going to have to make some hard decisions about what writing skills need to be taught.
I agree with this too. My kids school district stopped teaching grammar in 5th grade or so. Writing thru 12th is taught to specifically focus on content development and not grammar…so rubrics and grades wouldn’t include grammar principles. What that meant for my kids is I had to pay their ACT tutor to re-teach them all the grammar rules (but they have no issues with critical thinking.) This was primarily pre-Covid.
Really interesting. So many ways this can go. I also think part of the reason some students and young adults are lacking today in writing and grammar skills is the fact that reading books for pleasure has seen a significant decline.
I disagree. Correct grammar, clear communication, good ideas— I see these 3 things as having only a little overlap.
You can see all the permutations of the Venn diagram here on CC. We have posters with good ideas where every other sentence is a “Let’s eat Grandma.” We have Ivy league graduates and doctors who give good advice but can’t tell the difference between the possessive and the plural. We have skillful writers of charming vignettes where the conclusions of their tales are logical fallacies as often as not. We have grouches with lovely grammar but a stiff and pedantic style who are right 50% of the time, but dead wrong the other 50%…
I’m not sure we disagree? My point wasn’t that you can’t have good ideas if you aren’t a good writer. It’s that good ideas aren’t really worth much if you can’t communicate them clearly and thus that successful “critical thinking” requires both. (This was in response to a post saying maybe we don’t need to teach writing and instead focus on critical thinking.)
I think we still disagree. What I believe is that good ideas are still worth a lot, even if they come from people without strong writing skills. We see it already in the people on CC who have weak writing skills yet apparently have careers where they are very successful.
What I observe is that even now good ideas often make it through, despite weak writing. And very soon, people with good ideas but weak writing will be able to rely on AI in the same way that the rich and powerful have always been able to rely on ghost writers/speech writers. AI may be stiff and clunky now, but it’s only going to get better.
Both C26 and I chuckled at the fact that their senior English class has a grammar and punctuation quiz this Friday, but I’m understanding it more after reading some of the posts in this thread!
I wouldn’t have a problem with people expressing their good ideas through AI, if they would at least interact with the AI enough to ensure the output represents those ideas. The problem I am seeing with some people that I collaborate with is that once the AI produces plausible-looking written output, people are tempted to stop there, without applying reading, thinking, and editing skills to ensure that the text actually expresses the ideas they intended, or to refine the ideas expressed. Thus, I receive “workslop” (a term taken from this article) that requires much more effort on my part to fix.
How will we preserve reading and thinking skills, without continuing to practice writing and editing?
Yes, this is the right question. I believe these skills reinforce each other and are all part of critical thinking and analysis. Good ideas are strengthened through the work of figuring out how to present them cogently. Maybe AI can play a supportive role in that process (although I’d probably argue that the environmental costs aren’t worth it), but it can’t be totally outsourced.
Well the student with autism when asked what he will contribute to the community, wrote me a few ideas and then this:
Although this is written by AI, could we use this as a framework and build upon this?
The AI essay was actually terrible and not his style at all. I just fed him back what he had written me, which made for a perfectly good essay if a bit tech focused.
Maybe I need to be more open about this, especially when used for a kid who is stuck, but he didn’t need it and his own writing is better.
