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Joanne Jacobs
Nov 20, 20243 min read
Who's to blame for the reading crisis?
"Balanced literacy" guru Lucy Calkins has become the " scapegoat for America's reading crisis ," suggests Helen Lewis in The Atlantic. ...
5 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Sep 5, 20241 min read
Studying Swift (Taylor, not Jonathan) in school
Studying pop-song lyrics in English class doesn't prepare students for college reading or writing.
0 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Sep 2, 20242 min read
AI is winning the war on cheating
A majority of students use AI to help write papers, and AI detection tools remain unreliable.
3 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Aug 18, 20242 min read
The trauma of the non-traumatized student
It's the start of the college application season, and 12th-graders are searching their lives for subject matter for essays, writes Robert...
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Joanne Jacobs
Jul 5, 20242 min read
The college pitch: How students write personal essays
Minority students are only slightly less likely to write about their racial or ethnic identity in college admissions essays, according to...
1 comment
Joanne Jacobs
May 26, 20241 min read
Training (and restraining) an AI writing coach
A new AI writing coach will work from a student's notes, turning ideas into sentences.
4 comments
Joanne Jacobs
May 26, 20242 min read
If teachers ban AI for students, can they use it for grading?
Can teachers ban AI for students' writing but use it for grading?
3 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Mar 19, 20242 min read
Drop the admissions essay, and bring back the SAT
It's time to dump college admissions essays, writes Matthew Levey on The 74. Test scores and good grades in challenging courses are...
11 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 20, 20242 min read
Sympathy for the devil: What's the bad guy's point of view?
Novelist Rachel Kadish tells her creative-writing students to write a first-person monologue by a character with "abhorrent" views that...
5 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 28, 20242 min read
More than ever, college applicants are writing about race
Writing about race is more popular than ever for black, Hispanic and indigenous college applicants, writes Bernard Mokam in the New York...
4 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Oct 25, 20232 min read
'A' is for 'awesome,' 'awful' and 'average'
"The most popular high school grade in America" is "A," writes Tim Donahue, who teaches high school English at Greenwich Country Day...
7 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Sep 23, 20232 min read
AI will change testing: Can it grade essays?
Number 2 pencils and fill-in-the-bubble are out, writes Matteo Wong in The Atlantic. Standardized tests are going digital. In a few...
1 comment
Joanne Jacobs
Sep 5, 20232 min read
Let AI do it: High schoolers don't need to write essays any more
"Good-bye and good riddance" to teaching students to write essays, writes Daniel Herman in The Atlantic. Herman, who teaches English at a...
20 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Sep 5, 20232 min read
No tests, inflated grades and now AI is writing admissions essays (instead of Mom)
Colleges are trying to figure out whether to ban chatbots or see AI as a way to level the playing field for students who don't have Mom...
4 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Aug 11, 20233 min read
AI can be a teaching and learning tool -- or a crutch
Bots powered by artificial intelligence are getting smarter and smarter. Will people get dumb and dumber? Rick Hess of the American...
2 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Jul 26, 20231 min read
What works in teaching English (discussion) may not work in teaching math
The most effective use of class time depends on the subject, concludes a study conducted in high-poverty English high schools, reports...
4 comments
Joanne Jacobs
May 10, 20231 min read
Red, green, yellow, blue: Write a thesis, show it's true
The 3-3-3 paragraph had a thesis sentence with a "subject and attitude," supported by three topic sentences, each of which was supported...
2 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20232 min read
Catching ChatGPT cheaters is tough: Is it bursty?
Open AI's program to catch chatbot cheaters is very unreliable, write Armin Alimardani and Emma A. Jane on The Conversation. The company...
7 comments
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 18, 20231 min read
When the best paper in the class was written by a bot
Professors are changing the way they assess students to make it harder for students to use artificial intelligence to generate essays,...
1 comment
Joanne Jacobs
Jan 10, 20232 min read
Teaching with AI: Can the bot be a useful tool?
ChatGPT can be a powerful teaching tool, argues Ben Talsma, who helps teachers use technology, on Chalkbeat. A learning specialist for...
3 comments
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