How to Talk to Students About AI Using Contemporary Poetry

 by Tracee Orman

Over the summer, I read a poem I could not stop thinking about. It was called “Please Use AI” by Joanna Atkins-Potts. 
 
It made me stop and think about all the tiny little things that make us human. Like driving with the window down, feeling the grass between your toes, falling in love… Things that a machine will never be able to feel.
 
I knew instantly that this poem would be perfect for class. But I also wanted to share it with the world. I reached out to Jo and another contemporary poet, Shawn Smucker (who wrote the original “Please Use AI” that Jo's was inspired by), to see if we could collaborate on a lesson featuring their poems. Both poets gave me permission to use their poems and reprint them in a student-friendly format with room for annotation.
 
Their poems are not only perfect examples of verbal irony, but relevant sources for opening up a dialogue about AI use with your students. I mean, let's be honest. Students are using AI. It's readily available to them, it's getting harder and harder to detect, and they see everyone else using it. 

When I first posted this on my Instagram, many teachers reached out to me concerned because their students are using AI to do all their own thinking, from choosing what they should wear each day to deciding whether to break up with a boyfriend. And, of course, writing essays and answering homework questions. They are outsourcing their thinking, their creativity, what makes them human. I hear people express concern for the future if people become addicted to AI. I think the future is already here.

So how do we address this? How do we encourage students not to use AI for every little thing? (Or for the big things they need to learn?) One way is to start having these conversations about what we are losing every time we use AI. The poems can be our openers.

What is so wonderful about these poems is that they use sarcasm, something most teens can easily understand. After you've read the poems with your students*, you can discuss the theme, rhetorical devices, and compare how each poet treats the subject. But then talk about why the message resonates with so many. (Both poems went viral this summer.) Did it make them think differently about using AI?

Because both poets draw from their own adult experiences, it helps to have a teenage perspective, as well, which is why I include an example poem written from the perspective of a teenager.

And because I cannot let an opportunity slip to have students write poetry, I have them brainstorm different little things that they do throughout the day that are uniquely human. Things they may be tempted to outsource to AI. Then they use those examples to write their own parody "Please Use AI" poems.

This, I think, is where the reality of it might seep in. When they share their poems with one another, it just might make them think differently about how they are using AI.

Jo Atkins-Potts also wrote an essay about what the poem means to her, so you can have students read the essay AFTER they have already analyzed the poems themselves. She writes about what we stand to lose if we allow a machine to do all of our thinking for us. For teenagers, this is especially important. They are still learning so many valuable things. If they skip these steps and never learn to struggle through a problem or find the right words for an essay, they aren't learning perseverance, determination, or patience. They are missing out on the building blocks that make us uniquely ourselves.

What else would you include in these discussions? I would love to hear your feedback on our Instagram page.

You can find my full lesson here: Poetry Analysis: Please Use AI
While it is listed for grades 9-12, it can be adapted for 7th-8th grades, as well. I have an alternative assignment where only Atkins-Potts's poem is used.

*If you'd like to play a video of the reading of either poem, voice actor Chris Tester (@NaturallyRPVoiceover) recorded both.
Shawn Smucker's on YouTube 
Jo Atkins-Potts' on YouTube 
You can also find them on his TikTok and Instagram accounts.