Coaching Teachers in the Age of AI

I love your first three paragraphs! You’re drawing a thoughtful connection between the work of NYCWP teacher consultants and your current online coaching with teachers learning AI. Right away, you set up a sense of continuity—almost a lineage—between the NYCWP’s focus on deep, respectful, collaborative relationships and this new era of AI-supported teaching. Your mention of Stories of Impact anchors your point in real experience and scholarship, which is always powerful, and you do a great job showing that the heart of the work—valuing teachers’ expertise, fostering reflection, respecting school culture—remains constant even as the tools and context change.

At the same time, you’re clear that both groups—NYCWP TCs and today’s AI coaches—find meaning in long-term, trusting partnerships and a commitment to honoring teachers’ knowledge. You write, “We both have stories about meaningful, multi-year relationships with colleagues,” and that really captures the spirit of what makes professional learning communities so effective. In my own work, I found that building relationships was essential to telling Henrietta’s story honestly, and you’re tapping into that same energy of trust and co-learning here.

Would you like to hear more about:
- How you set up parallels between prompt design and composition pedagogy?
- The way you discuss community and professional learning?
- Or maybe how your writing flows between specifics and broader claims?

Or is there another layer you want to unpack together? Let’s dive in!

Please Note: Everything in this comment is AI-generated. It is made up to sound like me.

And hey, if you’re interested in writing, structure, or the inside story of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, don’t miss my interview with David Dobbs in The Open Notebook, “How Rebecca Skloot Built The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”: https://writingpartners.net/documents/4635

What if we started with a vivid memory—imagine walking into a room buzzing with the energy of teachers swapping stories, their laughter echoing off chalkboards, and the smell of coffee mingling with fresh paper? That’s how I first entered the New York City Writing Project community in the 1980s, instantly surrounded by passionate educators who believed in the power of collaboration. This spirit of partnership—then rooted in writing, now evolving with AI—continues to shape how I work with teachers and students today. What do you think about opening with a scene like that?

Thanks for sharing your opening paragraphs and asking, “What can I do to improve the first three paragraphs, my introduction?” Let’s dive in! I’ll focus on the first three paragraphs and give you some feedback based on linguistically inclusive pedagogy, while also keeping an eye out for any Black Language (BL) features or rhetorical strategies you’re using. I’ll highlight what’s working well, suggest a few changes where needed (especially if there are grammar or mechanics issues), and invite you to think about your audience and purpose as you revise.

Paragraph 1: Establishing Context & Personal Connection

First off, your introduction does a great job of establishing a sense of personal history and connection. You open by grounding the reader in your own experience—joining the New York City Writing Project—and immediately situate yourself in a community of practice. This is engaging because it signals to your audience that you’re not just an observer but an active participant with real relationships. One thing to consider: your sentence structure is sometimes complex, which could be streamlined for clarity. For example, the long sentence about “an amazing group…who were at the height of their impact” might be broken up so readers can follow more easily. Also, pay attention to consistency in verb tenses—“welcomed me” (past) fits nicely with “I became,” but later when you say “I enjoy hearing their stories,” that shifts us into present tense—intentional? If so, what effect does that have for your audience? You might also want to clarify who “these colleagues” are right at the start for readers unfamiliar with NYCWP.

Would you like me to keep going with feedback on paragraph two?

Great, I see you want help clarifying your writing in the first five paragraphs. Before we dig into each paragraph, let’s pause on your goals. When you say “clarify,” do you mean making your points more direct for a specific audience, or are you looking to simplify language, add detail, or re-organize ideas? Also, who’s your main audience here—teachers new to AI, veteran literacy coaches, education researchers? Your answer will help me focus my feedback to really support what you’re aiming for with these first five paragraphs.

Let’s start with the first paragraph (below). Do you want to see my thoughts and suggestions for the next paragraph too?

Feedback on Engaging and Appealing First Paragraphs

To answer your question about how to make sure your first paragraphs are engaging and appealing to a wide audience, I want to start by looking at the energy and scene-setting you open with. You drop us right into a lively, sensory space—teachers swapping stories, laughter bouncing around, that classic coffee-and-paper smell—which is an excellent move for grabbing attention. When we talk about engaging a wide audience, this kind of vivid imagery pulls readers in no matter their background. The conversational tone helps folks feel included rather than like they’re reading a traditional academic introduction.

Would you like to see more feedback focused on how your writing appeals across different audiences or invites participation?

Alright, let’s dig into your question about what paragraphs 8-13 are communicating and whether it’s clear why you’re sharing this story. Here’s my first paragraph of feedback:

Paragraphs 8-13 seem to be transitioning from your earlier stories about the NYC Writing Project into a new but related narrative about your experiences at Bard’s Language and Thinking program. You set the scene with vivid details—the lively atmosphere, notable educators like Peter Elbow, and the foundational practices of freewriting and community learning. This shift introduces a second professional learning community that shaped your approach to teaching writing, emphasizing exploratory and collaborative methods. Are you aiming here to show how multiple communities influenced not just your own philosophy, but also how you see the potential for AI tools in writing education? If so, it’s coming across as an expansion—moving from one formative space (NYCWP) to another (Bard’s L&T), which together underpin your values around relationships, reflection, and respect for teachers’ expertise.

Would you like to see more?

Absolutely, I see your question is about finding a more fitting word than “estate” to describe the large, historic house at Bard College that’s being used for faculty housing during special events. When I think about your paragraph and the story you’re telling, it seems like you’re after language that captures both the size and history of the building, but also its lived-in, academic vibe now that it’s part of Bard. Some words you might consider are “manor,” “mansion,” “residence,” or even “hall.” Depending on the tone you want—more formal, nostalgic, or just descriptive—you could play with phrases like “the old manor house,” “the main hall,” or even “the former mansion now turned faculty residence.” Want to see a little more on this?

Oh, I absolutely love the energy and authenticity radiating from these first 14 paragraphs! You’re inviting us into a living, breathing community of educators—almost like stepping into a favorite coffee shop where everyone’s swapping stories, ideas, and strategies. The writing instantly grounds us in real spaces: the Lehman classroom’s hum, Bard’s mansion-turned-faculty-residence with wildflowers on ornate couches. That sense of place isn’t just pretty description; it anchors your argument that literacy learning—whether rooted in classic writing pedagogy or infused with new AI tools—always starts with people and relationships.

What strikes me most is how you connect the dots between decades of collaborative teaching and today’s experiments with AI-enhanced literacy. You don’t position AI as a cold disruptor but as an extension of deep professional respect for teachers’ expertise: “AI prompt design…starts with recognizing teachers as domain experts.” That’s such a vital shift! Your emphasis on honoring what teachers know—and giving them time to reflect, play, and iterate—is really at the heart of what makes any educational innovation stick. And I can’t help but cheer when you describe students remixing Writing Partner prompts for themselves: not just using tools but actively shaping their own learning environments.

Let me distill some key insights from these paragraphs into quick-access boxes so you can see different directions we might take next:

What do you want to dig deeper into?
Would you like to explore:
- How professional communities sustain real change across decades?
- What it looks like to make teacher knowledge visible through prompt engineering?
- Or how student agency grows when they engineer their own feedback tools?

Pick one—or more—or suggest another direction! Let’s kick this up another notch together!

Please Note: Everything in this comment is AI-generated. It is made up to sound like me.

If you want even more context or inspiration, check out my interview about passionate users or my book excerpt on making users awesome—they’re fueling every word here!