Adjunct Associate Professor Misty Adoniou explores ChatGPT’s role in classrooms and why its rise challenges educators to rethink what authentic writing really means.
I’ve been thinking about this article for days now. Not constantly, not every minute of every day, but the thoughts have been bubbling away in the background – while watching TV, drifting off to sleep, reading research, or even chatting with a stranger on a shuttle bus. The question is simple: Can ChatGPT teach our kids to write?
Curious, I asked ChatGPT what it would write. Without hesitation, and certainly without the human angst over tone, clarity, or accuracy, it produced a fully formed essay in less than a second. It began: “The rise of AI-generated writing tools offers both opportunities and challenges for teachers supporting students’ writing development. Understanding these can inform wise, balanced classroom use.”
Technically correct, but utterly ordinary. The lack of human “angsting” shows. The essay followed the exact formula we teach in schools: restate the question, present three arguments for, three against, and conclude by repeating the introduction with more conviction. It even used the predictable signposts – firstly, secondly, thirdly for opportunities, and however, additionally, finally for challenges. Neat, tidy, and lifeless. Ironically, it would probably earn an A.
So why would a student spend hours crafting a five-paragraph essay when ChatGPT can churn out the same banality in seconds, with flawless spelling and punctuation? This is the uncomfortable truth: AI hasn’t broken writing instruction; it has exposed its emptiness.
Educators worry about plagiarism, laziness, and the erosion of critical thinking. Researchers warn of declining reflection skills. Yet other studies highlight benefits: improved spelling and coherence, especially for English learners, and timely, individual feedback. Teachers appreciate the time saved on preparation. But the real issue isn’t AI – it’s us. For years, we’ve rewarded formula over thought, structure over substance. Unsurprisingly, AI excels at this because it mirrors what we’ve taught.
When headlines lament declining writing skills, the assumption is that kids can’t write. They can. NAPLAN data shows Year 3 students perform well. The decline begins in Year 5 – precisely when we start teaching them to write like machines. Long before ChatGPT, NAPLAN feedback urged schools to stop teaching formulaic responses and start teaching purpose, audience, and voice. In 2019, Queensland’s curriculum authority pleaded with teachers to help students engage with big ideas and write with intent. Yet classrooms remain obsessed with templates. Structure trumps meaning, heart, and even logic. The result? Writing that is neat but soulless – just like AI output. We’ve trained the algorithm in vapidity, and now it’s spitting it back at us with lightning speed.
So, what now? AI isn’t going away. The challenge is to define its role. The simplest way is to distinguish between text generation and writing. Text generation is functional: a sports carnival roster, a sunhat policy, a list of affixes, an annotated bibliography. These tasks require no originality – AI can handle them brilliantly. Writing, on the other hand, is human. It’s intentional, creative, and personal. It demands more than a clever prompt; it requires teaching. Students need to learn how to choose words, bend conventions, and develop a voice that resonates. Writing involves thinking, revising, and wrestling with ideas – processes no algorithm can replicate.
Currently, most school writing tasks are little more than text generation: practice essays on cats versus dogs, chapter summaries, or formulaic opinion pieces. If that’s all we expect, then yes – let AI take over. But if we want students to write with purpose and originality, we must rethink our approach. Imagine assignments that invite curiosity, argument, and authentic expression. Tasks that ask students to explore complex issues, craft narratives that matter to them, or write for real audiences beyond the classroom. These are the kinds of tasks that make writing meaningful – and impossible for AI to replicate convincingly.
Rather than banning AI, let’s use its arrival as a catalyst to reclaim writing as an art, not a formula. If the goal is text generation, let the machines do it. But if the goal is writing – real writing – leave it to the humans. The future of literacy depends on our willingness to teach students that writing is more than filling a template. It’s about shaping ideas, influencing others, and leaving a piece of yourself on the page. That’s something no algorithm can do.
