Developing an AI Framework Draft with NCTE

This past weekend I participated in a group of three dozen educators, researchers, curriculum and learning specialists, and digital program leaders to draft a framework for AI in the English classroom. To say that this was time well spent – for me personally and for the work NCTE is doing – is an understatement. I learned so much from discussions with experts in their fields who are passionate about teaching and learning and who held a wide variety opinions of what AI in the classroom should look like. Having the time and space for thinking and discussion on a most pressing issue in education is a gift; I wish all classroom teachers could be afforded this opportunity. I’m excited to share some of what happened and what I’m thinking about as I left the weekend.

After having dinner together Friday night, we got to work on Saturday morning. Emily Kirkpatrick, executive director of NCTE, and Antone Garcia, current NCTE president, started our session providing context of AI specifically for our work and our charge for the weekend. After that, Rex Ovalle, Secondary Steering Committee Chair, and I spent an hour sharing what we are noticing in our classrooms in regard to AI. We were given a set of questions to guide our conversation which I have shared below along with my notes of what I wanted to share.

Disclaimer: This is what I’m seeing in my classroom – Atlanta, GA, public school, 12th grade AP Literature (student survey results) and in my teacher networks; College Board – Co-chair of the AP Lit test development committee

What are students doing?

I informally surveyed my students in December about the role AI should have in an English class. Survey says . . . . .

None: – 17% – environmental reasons, for profit companies, bad for mind, limits creativity, steals work, addictive, inaccurate, for profit companies

Idea Generation – 23% – college apps (generate questions for answering), source recommendations, organizing thoughts(?), outlining(?),

Revision: 26% – editing, revision, vocabulary choices, draft(?), a tool to help write(?), come up with/rephrase ideas(?), making grammatical/flow better in writing

Organization 10% – outlining ideas, structuring essays

Research 5%

Grading/Feedback: 16% – feedback before submitting an assignment, faster feedback

Literary analysis 13%

Study Guide: 10% – understand rubrics, provide study guides and materials, creating quizzes after reading, dictionary, produce examples for inspiration, breaking down complex ideas into more understandable terms, chunk tasks/instructions

How is AI unfolding in student lives? What does that mean for your teaching life?

January 2023 – Frankenstein essays – the word “evocative” appeared in a third of them.
Students have been given access to AI – esp generative AI – but have received little to no training on how to use it as a tool.
i.e fire in a fire place – when contained it’s great and used with in correct parameters, it can be good (warmth, survival) but left on its own can be destructive – our students are playing with fire now
Most educators at my school and in my circles have pivoted to an analog classroom. I am not anti tech and am open to new ways of learning and thinking but have seen NO research that supports AI is beneficial for students learning to think.
Having a student watch AI spit out a response to a prompt within a few seconds that would take them minutes if not over an hour to craft is demoralizing. Students falsely assume that AI is “writing” but it’s not – it’s simply generating text. This makes students think writing is easier than it really is and causes them to doubt themselves as writers because the process of writing is often difficult and time consuming.
The breakneck speed that AI is developing has made the classroom feel somewhat unsettled – this coupled with phones, screens, etc. is the perfect storm. Students – and adults – are bombarded with ads for AI to save time and make life easier.
Students initially – and many still now – viewed AI as a short cut. Students are stressed, overcommitted for various reasons, or don’t value the work being done in classrooms and AI quickly became the bandaid to put over these larger problems.
I think teachers need to be educated and aware of what’s happening with AI but I don’t feel like we need to feel behind, panicked, or doing our students a disservice if we’re not incorporating AI in our classrooms.

Is AI shaping or evolving your teaching practice?

There’s a difference between pretending that AI doesn’t exist and not choosing to incorporate it into the classroom. My choosing not to use AI as a tool is not because I don’t understand it, but rather it’s because I do understand it.
I have enough ethical and environmental concerns that I personally don’t use it.
I refuse to spend hours upon hours of policing AI in my classroom. I don’t like the feeling of distrust in a teacher/student relationship.
A question I have is to what extent am I now – in addition to being a teacher of reading, writing, speaking, and listening – also an AI instructor and the ethics surrounding it.
Even though I am not bringing AI into the classroom now, I will continue to explore and educate myself on it and when I feel AI aligns with my pedagogy and see research to support that, I am open to changes.

What are admin/district perspectives/pushes on classrooms?

My district has no official AI policy yet we are offered district professional development on how to use AI platforms. This seems backwards to me.
I sat in a PD that “showed” me how to use an AI platform that the instructor had just learned about an hour before our session.
Teachers are not trained in it personally and certainly not trained in how to teach digital literacy in the age of AI.
Despite lack of training, there is a push – both directly and indirectly – to incorporate AI in the classroom.

How is technology shaping what unfolds in English classrooms right now?

AI is the water we swim in. I am thankful for a space like this with educators of different perspectives coming together to think – we need more time and space for this.
We have to acknowledge that AI is and will continue to shape education; it’s here to stay. But I don’t think we have to be in panic mode nor do we have to rush to action or feel like we’re behind or our students are missing out if we don’t incorporate AI in the classroom.
If teachers use AI for planning or school purposes, we should be transparent with students about the process. If not, students see this as a double standard.
Efficiency is not always the end goal – learning takes time and is messy.

Again everything above are my reflections from the classroom and working with teachers that I was able to share. Rex shared his experiences as well which are not that different from mine.

After Rex and I shared our classroom experiences and had some Q and A, we moved to a schedule for the remainder of the day that consisted of small group discussions around specific topics and large group sharing and debriefs. After lunch three researchers shared microtalks on work they have been doing; I especially enjoyed hearing about research in the field. We spent the rest of the afternoon discussing AI under the umbrella of reading, writing, and speaking/listening. Since our discussions were part of developing a forthcoming framework, I am not sharing specifics of the process (because process is messy sometimes); however, discussions held space for a spectrum of opinions from a variety of stakeholders in the room.

We convened again Sunday morning to review an initial draft and continued to focus our thinking on guiding principles, practical applications, and questions for further consideration. Near the end of the morning, we voted on questions that we would like to see NCTE put more thought and time toward in an effort to support districts, schools, and teachers. Everyone agreed that no matter what role someone plays in education, we all need more learning and training in AI.

I am not sure the timing of everything but know this framework will be released sooner rather than later (we need support and guidance yesterday on this) and will guide the work of the 40 teacher cohort that will be working with AI in the classroom over the next several months. Stay tuned for more on this!

Some things that I’m still chewing on from the weekend:

We had a reading list to help us prepare for the meeting and I found this piece so interesting! It’s long but worth the watch!

We’re often holding students to a higher degree of accountability and standard than the adults who are creating AI tools.

Student voice is silenced by AI – in terms of both HOW something is being said and WHAT is being said.

I saw some initial research on the bias of LLMs specifically in providing feedback for student writing that was unsettling. Update: here’s an article about the research.

Algorithms, privacy, intellectual property rights, authorship – so many things to think about here that feel icky to me. I definitely need to do more reading.

If students are relying on AI generated summary instead of reading a text, what may be left out, how is that determined, and how does this affect student learning? Does reading summaries require a different skill set? How does reading a synthetic text differ from reading a human authored text?

Environmental factors – specifically the location data centers – often tend to be located in black/brown communities and LLM bias is most prevalent in marginalized groups of students, so the groups of students that AI is often told can help the most are also the ones being hurt the most.

A lot of the conversation in groups I was in focused more on AI application in writing over reading.

One area I have interest in is how AI can level the playing field for students who struggle for a variety of reasons. I think there’s a lot of potential here but need to hear more specific applications in this area.

I met some people who have very different opinions from me about the application of AI in the classroom who are smart, kind, and also want the best for students. I feel like our pedagogy of teaching is very similar; we just disagree on the use of AI in the process.

As if the meeting wasn’t enough goodness for one weekend, our hotel was within walking distance from The Last Bookstore in LA. Definitely add this to your list if you’re in the area!

What are you thinking about AI in the classroom? I’d love to know!

Susan Barber teaches AP® English Literature at Midtown High School in Atlanta, Georgia, and serves as co-chair of the AP® Literature Development Committee. She is the coauthor of The Norton Guide to AP^® Literature: Writing & Skills (Smith, 2022) and 100% Engagement: 33 Lessons to Promote Participation, Beat Boredom, and Deepen Learning in the ELA Classroom (Stabnik, 2025). Susan is most proud of the work she does on a daily basis in E216 and never tires of the beauty and chaos of the