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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...

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 19, 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 20, 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 28, 20242 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Oct 25, 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 23, 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...

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...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 5, 20232 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 11, 20233 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Jul 26, 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...

Joanne Jacobs
May 10, 20231 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 26, 20232 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,...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 18, 20231 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...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 10, 20232 min read


NYC schools ban ChatGPT
Is it real or is it artificial intelligence? ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot that"generates stunningly cogent and lifelike writing" has been ...

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 10, 20231 min read


Back to handwriting?
I don't write much by hand these days, and when I do it's a chore. Even writing a few lines on Christmas cards seems like hard work....

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 2, 20232 min read


The kids can't write
Students are encouraged to express themselves, writes Elizabeth Grace Matthew, who's taught writing at several universities, on The Hill....

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 12, 20221 min read


ChatGPT writes better than most students: What next?
Is writing over? The ability to write clearly and cogently has been seen as "a gatekeeper, a metric for intelligence, a teachable skill,"...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 11, 20222 min read


Colleges drop remedial classes -- but many students are unprepared
California's community colleges will be ordered to stop offering no-credit remedial classes in nearly all cases, if Gov. Gavin Newsom...

Joanne Jacobs
Sep 9, 20223 min read


AI doesn't write well, but it's better than some students
Shakespeare it's not. However, a new artificial-intelligence technology called GPT-3, which understands and generates text, could help...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 23, 20222 min read


Thank you, Ms. Lung
Born in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, Jamil Jan Kochai started second grade in Sacramento speaking Pashto and Farsi, but very...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 21, 20222 min read
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