Empower Students Now

Any English teacher can tell you that argumentative essays written by students are more often than not, dry, dull, and formulaic. I’m here to tell you, it’s not our students’ fault. The writing units most teachers follow to teach argument essays are dry, dull, and formulaic.Common core standards require that teachers prioritize the core concepts of argument writing such as the writing process, thesis statement, claim statement, reasoning, evidence, and the annotated bibliography. Teachers have to use a step-by-step process because students need these foundations.In all the years I’ve been an English teacher I have found that writing surpasses expectations when students have a purpose for writing and are given permission to write with voice and passion about high-interest topics. Listen to learn about 8 high interest argumentative articles (mentor texts) you can use with your students tomorrow. Each article includes possible writing skills you could teach as well as discussion questions!Support this podcast (you'll benefit too, I promise) by purchasing high quality resources that increase student engagement, promote equity, and are editable here: https://amandawritenow.com/shop/

Rules dictate so much of our lives in schools. But, so many of the rules we follow in schools are extremely outdated and even oppressive. These rules need to be questioned and changed. In this off the cuff episode I share steps for teachers who are ready to start taking rule breaking and action taking seriously. Even if you aren't, which I totally respect and understand, this episode is definitely worth a listen.

Over the years I've learned that the first lesson of an argumentative writing unit is key to the success of the entire unit. The first lesson needs to accomplish a lot, so it's hard to do it right. Argumentative writing can also become boring fast. I want to help you save planning time and boost engagement through the lesson plans I create. I believe argumentative essay writing can be motivating for young writers and simple to plan for teachers. In this episode, I've put together a five day plan that I believe is the absolute best way to start any argumentative writing unit.

This podcast is no longer called The Workshop Teacher Podcast. I'm changing the name of the podcast to The Empower Students Now Podcast! Listen to this episode to find out why.

It's about time for teachers to start their opinion, persuasive, or argumentative writing units (depending on the grade you teach). Most teachers realize that sample sentences and essays are an important component of any writing unit. But, one of the hardest parts about teaching this type of writing is finding writing samples that are age appropriate.It's easy to look on websites of popular newspaper outlets and find an opinion piece, opinion polls, and someone's personal opinion shared via an editorial. The problem is these newspapers have paywalls set up, limiting access. Also, the writing is written at the high school level and much too complex for say, fifth graders. Plus tools like Newsela and CommonLit require payment. But, I'm here to shout from the rooftops that finding a variety of writing samples is easier than ever with a new tool called Chat GPT and right now it's completely free, but it might not be for long!I recently published a three-part series about how Chat GPT, and future iterations of this tool, are going to have a significant impact on the way we teach.This tool is striking fear in the hearts of teachers worried about plagiarism. But, getting stuck in fear is a mistake!English teachers need to take advantage of its ability to generate sentence examples, opinion questions, persuasive writing prompts, and more. Teachers can use this tool to enhance their teaching and save time, and I'm going to prove it to you right here, right now.

The best way to handle new technology being introduced to the education world is to investigate the tools for ourselves, with an open mind, rather than getting caught up in fear and overwhelm. I know this is hard to do, believe me, I'm a fairly neurotic, anxious person. But, as an English teacher, it is our job to teach students how to utilize critical thinking, be open minded, and organize all the information coming at us in a cohesive manner.It's our job to model this kind of behavior.Yes, our initial feelings may be that of fear and overwhelm and even defeat. Many teachers are feeling like their jobs are going to be replaced by machine learning and a chat interface. In my opinion though this new chatbot won't ever replace the importance of a human being in the classroom or the beauty and creativity that comes from human language.Check out this three part series below:Part 1: What are some of the possible impacts of AI tools like Chat GPT on teachers and students (please tell me something positive!)?Part 2: How do I prevent cheating and plagiarism when tools like this exist?Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.

Now that students have easy access to artificial intelligence chatbots like Chat GPT, teachers are pondering how to prevent students from using these tools to do their work for them. Cheating seems to be easier than ever these days. English language arts teachers are especially panicked. When I started playing with Chat GPT I felt a mixture of excitement and fear.I was excited about the potential to improve my writing with feedback from artificial intelligence, to have a tool for getting ideas for blog posts, and to be able to produce writing samples for students. I also toyed with having it write blog posts for me, knowing full well I would absolutely never copy and paste what it produced and call it mine. It lacks my voice and personality. The prospect made my head spin. I wracked my brain and the internet searching for ways to prevent plagiarism and cheating but also harness the tool to support students without hindering their thinking and learning. I decided I needed to write a series of blog posts on this topic to try and grapple with the complexities of this new technology. Each part attempts to answer essential questions teachers are asking about artificial intelligence tools like Chat GPT.Here are the questions I’m attempting to answer with this series: Part 1: 7 Ways Chat GPT Will Impact Education…Positively.Part 2: How do I prevent cheating/plagiarism when tools like this exist?Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.

I believe the topic of AI tools and how they impact education is incredibly important. So important in fact that I’ve decided to dedicate the next series of episodes to helping teachers grapple with these new and fast moving technological developments. In this series I’ll discuss three essential questions teachers are asking about AI tools like Chat GPT. I’ll also attempt to answer these questions to the best of my abilities using the extensive research I’ve done about AI tools over the last couple of months. Here’s a break down of the blog posts that are to come:Part 1: What are some of the possible impacts of AI tools like Chat GPT on teachers and students (please tell me something positive!)?Part 2: How do I prevent cheating and plagiarism when tools like this exist?Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.