AI-Responsive Writing: The I-Search Essay and Process Grading
At the 2024 AI Connect K-12 Data Science Conference, teacher Nick Potkalitsky of Pragmatic AI Solutions argued that writing instruction should focus on voice and process now that AI handles genre. He proposed the I-search essay and assessing students' AI chats.
By The AI Enterprise Magazine Team4 min read
Key takeaways
- Process over product. Teachers can recalibrate within their own classrooms to value the writing process.
- Focus on voice. AI can imitate genres, so Potkalitsky says instruction should cultivate each student's voice.
- The I-search essay. A continuous, personal research document that records the process of discovery.
- Assess AI use. One approach is outcomes that evaluate how students interact with AI.
- Keep unaided writing. He sees cognitive gains from writing without AI.
At the 2024 AI Connect K-12 Data Science Conference, a virtual event, Nick Potkalitsky, a teacher and AI Literacy Coach at Pragmatic AI Solutions, argued that teachers should stop grading only the finished product and start grading the writing process. His proposal for an "AI responsive" writing classroom centers on the I-search essay, a research format with roots in 1970s and 1980s writing pedagogy.
Potkalitsky, who has taught middle school, high school and college and holds a PhD in narrative communication and rhetoric, said he discloses when he uses AI in preparation and had used the tool Gamma to build his slides. He writes a weekly newsletter on Substack called Educating AI.
Why are students using AI for writing assignments?
Teachers have been deep in abstract conversations about AI, Potkalitsky said, and are looking for practical systems they can run day to day, including a way to separate AI use that counts as cheating from AI use that serves learning.
He said students use AI for utility and for efficiency. High schoolers face heavy stress, product-based assignments and high-stakes testing, and ChatGPT arrived in the middle of that. It is natural, he said, that many gravitate toward it to get an edge in a system that makes college admission harder.
His answer is a "classroom by classroom recalibration," in which each teacher shifts focus to process within their own space.
What is an AI responsive writing pedagogy?
Potkalitsky said advanced models "have genre covered": they can imitate any genre because they have many examples to draw on. So he argues teachers should return to what he described as the focus of 1970s and 1980s writing teachers, who pushed back on the five-paragraph model and moved from genre toward voice.
He quoted writing scholar Peter Elbow's description of voice as an imprint of oneself on one's writing. People can try to teach AI to imitate their voice, he said, and some experiments show it gets part of the way. But from his own classroom experience he sees an identifiable voice in each student, and he said that in K-12 it is now the teacher's job to find and help cultivate it.
That means moving away from all-or-nothing assignments turned in at the end under a high-stakes rubric. He cited writing pioneer Donald Murray: "writing is rewriting. Writing is a process of discovery." Teachers, Potkalitsky said, should value the discovery more than what is discovered.
What is an I-search essay?
The I-search essay, associated with Ken Macrorie, who wrote books about it in the early 1980s, is written continuously while the student researches. It emphasizes the writer's personal involvement and documents the process of discovery.
Potkalitsky said he turned to it during COVID, when he saw a crisis of engagement in the writing classroom. The idea is to bring personality back into student writing, with topics students want to explore. He said it works from high school through college, and teachers can raise or lower the complexity and devise their own citation systems. His resource document includes high school and college examples.
How should AI be used in the process?
If students use AI to work through an I-search, Potkalitsky said, one move is to write outcomes that assess the process, AI use included. He credited a friend, Mike Kent, with a system called "assess the chats," which treats a student's interaction with AI as the material to evaluate.
He called that imperfect, because some base competencies still need to be taught without AI. "I don't see a future where we're just entirely writing through AI," he said, citing cognitive gains from writing unaided.
Over the next three to five years, he said, if writing classrooms become process-based spaces with less high-stakes assessment, AI could serve utility rather than efficiency. Students would be invited to find novel uses instead of working in what he called the shadows.
What happens next in his classroom?
Potkalitsky said he would test the approach over the coming school year, as he moved from ninth to 12th grade, with older students he described as ready for the cognitive complexity. He invited students to share feedback on whether the plan is plausible. "All of this is for you," he told them.
His company offers a program called Pragmatic Prompting for AI Differentiated Instruction, which he said works best when schools or departments adopt it together. The slides, a resource document with a mini-course for building an I-search essay and sample prompts were shared with attendees.
Where to hear more
AI Connect continues to run free live sessions on data and AI. The 2027 schedule includes 24 free live webinars across four series: the AI x Enterprise Panel Series, AI Demo Days, Agentic AI Showcases and the Plug & Play Series. Registration for 2027 events is coming soon. See the webinar schedule.
Frequently asked questions
What is an I-search essay?
Potkalitsky described it as a research essay written continuously during research that emphasizes the writer's personal involvement and documents the process of discovery.
How can teachers handle AI cheating concerns in writing?
He proposed shifting to process-based assignments and, where students use AI, assessing the process including AI use, an approach he linked to Mike Kent's 'assess the chats'.
Why focus on student voice?
Potkalitsky said advanced models already cover genre, so teachers should help each student cultivate an identifiable voice.
Will students write entirely with AI?
He said he does not see that future and believes unaided writing has real cognitive benefits.
This article is based on remarks by Nick Potkalitsky, Teacher and AI Literacy Coach, Pragmatic AI Solutions at AI Connect K-12 Data Science Conference 2024 on July 25, 2024. More coverage: More AI Connect Events.
Filed under: People, Culture & Leadership, AI Use Cases & Applications
