What follows is the first draft of the introduction to my book-in-progress, Writing Instruction in the World of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for English Teachers Using ChatGPT

A story I often read to my eldest daughter is an old copy of Disney’s adaptation of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The tale is about an old wizard’s apprentice (Mickey) who, while his master is away, decides to use his master’s magic hat to complete his chores. However, he soon realizes that he cannot control the magic and the broom he enchanted to do his work becomes uncontrollable and in Mickey’s attempts to stop it, he creates a far greater problem.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is about the danger of power in the hands of the ignorant and the importance of control and responsibility. The story warns against the reckless use of power and the consequences that can come with it. The apprentice learns the hard way that one must be fully prepared and trained to use magic properly. The story also highlights the idea that one should not try to shortcut their education or experience, and instead learn and grow gradually to master their skills and avoid causing harm.

English teachers today are facing a rapidly changing educational landscape, one in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important aspect of writing instruction. The rise of AI tools like ChatGPT has the potential to transform the way we teach writing and language arts, but it also raises important concerns and questions. Writing Instruction in the World of Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Language Arts Teachers is a comprehensive resource designed to help English teachers navigate this new landscape and make the most of the opportunities presented by AI. This book addresses the fears and concerns that many English teachers have about AI and provides practical advice on how to incorporate AI tools like ChatGPT into writing instruction in responsible and effective ways.

As technology develops, the world changes in many ways: predominate professions shift, cultural norms drift, and the usefulness of certain skills wax and wane.

Based on the most predominate surnames in the US, UK, and other parts of the West where occupational surnames dominate, Smith is the most common. But how many of those people are smiths by profession? Even given a new resurgence in artisan crafting, smithing as an occupation has long been obsolete due to technological development—and has been for a couple hundred years. The education formerly in place for blacksmiths, blade smiths, armorers and the like has been relegated to the annals of Wikipedia and a few worthy craftsmen determined to keep that tradition alive. But no longer is that the norm.

Technological development has created innumerable cultural shifts: the firearm, the printing press, the locomotive, the radio, the airplane, television, the Internet, email, social media, robotics, and artificial intelligence have shifted and continually move culture in ways we can hardly fathom. Culture is incredibly complex, and while we can see some of the many causal dominoes of history knocked over by the invention of the printing press and locomotive, predicting the changes caused by the development of an ever-improving technology like artificial intelligence is impossible. That inability to foresee what lies ahead for our culture and civilization rightly causes anxiety in many. Teachers who are attempting to prepare the next generation to lead this society are doubly anxious as they are not just preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist, but they are trying to prepare students to lead and contribute to a world that doesn’t yet exist. How does a teacher do that? How, with the increasing prevalence of state-mandated scripted curricula, standardized tests, and various and sundry other state-mandates, can teachers look to that increasingly unpredictable future and prepare their students for it? While there’s no silver bullet to these complex problems, one method proven by one of the most effective human institutions, the United States Marine Corps, is “improvise, adapt, and overcome.”

Teachers are typically great improvisers—having on the whole had to do their jobs with less than is ideal. However, often hemmed in with regulations, that adaptation becomes the struggle.

The field of education is generally behind the curve when it comes to adapting to the development of best practices, new technology, and societal shifts for many reasons. For good and ill, the field of education is influenced heavily by politics at local, state, and federal levels—which screams dysfunction and slow-to-act. But political battles aren’t the only issue plaguing educators. Disruptive students, problematic leadership, inattentive support staff, and burnt-out and coasting colleagues all bring additional burdens to educators still trying their best.

In spite of these challenges, teachers must tackle the needs of their students the best ways they know how. This book aims to improve that “know-how” of educators in adapting to the use of artificial intelligence in the English classroom. Further, this book is for educational and school system leaders to gain some insight into the ways technology is changing the classroom.

We should remember the lessons of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and apply them to our classrooms. For many of us, Artificial Intelligence might as well be magic—and its abilities can often exceed those of the magic we read in fairytales and folklore. Learning from the apprentice’s errors, we must endeavor to do due diligence in learning how to properly use these tools and discourage their reckless use and abuse.

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