Group Members: Rita, Jake, Guldensin, Macie

"Mastering Writing with Magic School AI"

Short description

The activity is designed to show students and/or teachers how to use Magic School to support the writing process for a compare and contrast essay. The tools are designed to provide feedback, guidance, and vocabulary for enhanced writing.

Contextualization

• Target Age: 12th grade students

• Target Language Level (based on CEFR): B2 

• Location (indoors, outdoors, gym, classroom, etc.): Classroom

Lesson Aims:

B2 level writing skills

Production

• Can develop a clear argument, expanding and supporting his/her points of view at some length with subsidiary points and

• relevant examples.

• Can construct a chain of reasoned arguments.

• Can explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Communicative Language Competences

• Cohesion, use of prepositions, vocabulary range:

• Has a good range of vocabulary for matters connected to his/her field and most general topics.

• Can vary formulation to avoid frequent repetition, but lexical gaps can still cause hesitation and circumlocution.

• Can write clear, detailed texts on a variety of subjects related to his/her field of interest, synthesizing and evaluating information and arguments from a number of sources.

Learning objectives (SWBATs)

At the end of the lesson, students will be able to 

• Understand the Magic School AI to help them improve their language ability

• Use Magic School AI to Proofread their essays for better coherence, and sentence structures.

• Use Magic School AI to evaluate their compare and contrast essays.

• Use Magic School AI to Generate a vocabulary list related to the prompt, tailored to their English level.

Preparation for the app task cycle (before the lesson), include an estimate of time needed for prep, and whether in-class or before.

• No need to download an app; simply make an account on Magic School using your email address login

• We are assuming that students already understand the requirements for the Compare and Contrast Essay before the start of this lesson. They have chosen a topic already, submitted an outline, and are beginning their drafting stage. Students will be using Magic School to assist in writing their paragraphs.

• Teachers should create a room in MagicSchool AI and add three features including Text Proofreader, Writing Feedback, and Vocabulary List Generator

Materials

• Access to Magic School 

• Laptops/computers/smartphones/tablet

• Handout for the AI activities

• Students’ writing samples

• Projector 

Brief description of each phase of task cycle (include time estimates for each stage)

• Pre-task: 

  • The lecturer will introduce the students the Magic School AI as previous homework. Students are required to sign up for an account before coming to class.

  • They also need to finish their outline for the essay, including their ideas and sources.

  • They also are required to put their prompt into the app to generate topic-related vocabulary for their essay.

• Main task: (In class)

  • Students will analyze sample essays using the app to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses.

  • Students will proofread sample essays with intentional mistakes using the app to understand its functionality, and later apply this to their own writing.

• Post-task: 

  • Students will participate in peer feedback sessions to compare their vocabulary tables and feedback.

  • Students will post their vocabulary tables in the discussion sections on Canvas.

  • Students will write the first draft of their essay, use the app to receive feedback on strengths and weaknesses, and then submit it as their first draft for evaluation.