What AI Taught Me about Teaching Class activities in the First-Year Composition classroom

Abstract

When I designed a classroom game to help my students practice synthesis writing, I didn’t expect that the experiment would teach me more than it taught them. Prompted by growing concerns over GenAI’s role in student work, I developed a four-part composition activity—with help from GenAI—to help cadets distinguish between summary and synthesis. While the exercise succeeded in engaging students, it failed to foster deeper synthesis, in part because I had treated AI-generated content as “good enough.” Reflecting on this outcome helped me identify three key shifts in my teaching. First, GenAI didn’t save me time—but it reallocated it in ways that deepened my pedagogical clarity. Second, my reluctance to disclose AI’s role in the lesson revealed an unresolved tension around expertise and authority. And third, I came to see GenAI as a tool that demands critical engagement, not passive acceptance—a lesson my students also need to learn. This essay explores how partnering with AI prompted a more recursive and transparent approach to both teaching and learning.