Artful AI in Writing Instruction: A Human-Centered Approach to Using Artificial Intelligence in Grades 6–12
By Brett Vogelsinger
(Corwin, 2025 – Learn more)
Reviewed by Michele Haiken
I have a mercurial relationship with AI as an English teacher. I use generative AI like Diffit to modify assignments for students when their reading lexile is lower than the grade level target or to help construct a reading guide with Google’s Notebook LM.
I’ve also created a chatbot on Magic School AI to help students edit and revise their creative mystery story in addition to our writing conferences and peer editing sessions.
These are a few examples of helpful aspects of artificial intelligence in my classroom. In the same vein, I see how my students jump to LLMs like ChatGPT or Gemini to find “the right answer” for textual analysis or to complete an assignment because they just want it done.
So the dilemma that teachers like myself are often wondering about and trying to solve: how can students use AI to support their reading, writing, and thinking without AI doing the heavy lifting. This is where Brett Vogelsinger’s book Artful AI in Writing Instruction: A Human-Centered Approach to Using Artificial Intelligence in Grades 6-12 helps to settle my teacher brain.
Vogelsinger’s book tackles the artificial intelligence predicament in education today. Each of the seven chapters introduces creative ways to consider and utilize AI in the English classroom without giving up what is at the heart and center: student voices and student thinking.
Can we use artificial intelligence in the classroom to support thinking and writing in thoughtful and creative ways without replacing student mindfulness? Brett Vogelsinger says, “Yes.” And his book is a roadmap for teachers with examples, lessons, and moments of reflection to help us harness the energy of AI to help our students write with more confidence with their voice at the center.
As Vogelsinger writes, “We need to teach students how to write well, but with new tools and new decisions to make” (pg. 21).
What to expect from each chapter
Each chapter in Artful AI walks readers through the writing process and where and how generative AI can fit into secondary education meaningfully. Chapters include utilizing AI as a prewriting partner, implementing it through the drafting process, looking to diction, voice, bias, and vocabulary, and applying feedback techniques when it comes to revising and editing. Within each chapter there are three to four lessons for teachers to try out or modify for their classroom, and reflections from teachers and students.
Vogelsinger takes some of the heavy lifting off the reader with adaptable lessons that help students sharpen their focus as readers and writers. Each lesson plan embedded in the chapters of the book contains learning objectives, relevant standards for middle and high school, materials needed, procedures, QR Codes to graphic organizers, and handouts (which are also included in the Appendix).
Putting AI in its place
The first lesson in Chapter 3 titled “Draft, Invite, Snatch, Expand” is one I have tried out with my eighth grade students. The lesson is designed to help students draft their ideas first without the use of AI and then – in the middle of the writing process – to invite an artificial intelligence LLM from your school’s acceptable use policy to help students think more deeply about their topics.
The key is that students start with their own writing and thinking. Then students can prompt the AI tool on the topic they are writing about. With the two different drafts in hand, students complete a Venn diagram to compare and contrast their writing and AI-generated text. (Yes, this handout is included in the book with a downloadable version too.)
After the compare and contrast step, “students expand their own draft . . . they may not use more than four consecutive words from the AI text, but they may use the organizational patterns, vocabulary, or big ideas they encountered in the AI text to enhance their own work” (pg. 63).
After student have had some time to revise their writing, they are invited to reflect. Reflection is a key component to learning, and also interacting with AI helps students evaluate their own learning and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of artificial intelligence’s writing capabilities. Not all student reflection will be positive. Our students are astute and know when they lost their voice or the AI tool steered them in the wrong direction.
Centering student voices
There are some books that I have on my bookshelf that I access regularly to review, rethink, and reflect on my teaching practices. Vogelsinger’s book is now one of them. Artful AI in Writing Instruction models productive and reflective approaches to using AI where student voices are centered and human thinking trumps artificial intelligence.
Michele Haiken Ed.D. has been teaching middle school English for the past twenty-five years in New York. She is the author of Personalized Reading, Second Edition (NCTE, 2024) and the forthcoming New Realms for Writing: Inspire Student Expression with Digital Age Formats, Second Edition (NCTE, 2026).
