From Mavis to Writable: The Perils and Promises of Writing Assistance Technology
The first time I remember using writing assistance technology was when my mother noticed my love for gaming and difficulty with typing. She surprised me one day with Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. I had no idea who Mavis Beacon was but, to please my mom, I booted up the floppy disk and tried it out. To this day two game-like experiences stick in my mind: car racing and shadow hands. These “games” stand out in my memory because they were both a bit odd. Winning the race car game required speed and accuracy while typing. I always finished in last place. Keeping pace with the shadowy hands hovering over the keys was impossible. I always lost my place when looking from the screen to the keyboard. Both games helped (kind of) and were fun for a while, but I never logged more than a few hours with Mavis as she taught me how to type.
My experience with Mavis Beacon mirrors the vast majority of writing assistance technologies that I have encountered. Mildly interesting and short-lived. For most writing assistance technologies I simply accept their suggestion and move on. Has my grammar and spelling improved? Not really. Though AI has helped me with simple errors.
As a teacher of writing, there are programs that promote timesaving services for teachers like Turnitin and Grammarly, but I have never completely trusted them. Consider Turnitin as an example, as a widely used program the main purpose of Turnitin is to check for plagiarism and the benefits of it as a writing assistant technology are rather limiting.
In a 2015 qualitative study of Turnitin, researchers found the “framework did not help all the learners to transform, because [students] learn how to manipulate Turnitin to produce false readings of zero percent. The learners knew that their general knowledge was not recorded in any database. Subsequently, they submitted it in order to generate 0% and print, the screenshot a report of 0%, while the original project is then submitted without being tested by Turnitin. This suggests that teachers should check each of the reports from their learners in order to make sure that none of the learners was able to successfully manipulate the system” (Khoza, p. 7).
Hardly a ringing endorsement for inspiring students to grow their writing lives. To put it another way, Turnitin directs a student’s focus towards gaming the system creating where mistrust is the vehicle of change.
In the case of Grammarly, another widely used extension to assist writers, a study published in the Journal of Academic Language & Learning concluded that “…both students and Academic Learning Advisors had problems with the fact Grammarly missed errors, misrepresented errors, gave inaccurate advice and generated too much feedback, which had a negative effect on students’ confidence” (O’Neill and Russell, p. 102). It seems, however, that relying on writing assistance technologies as the sole source of feedback was the heart of the challenge with Grammarly as
“…it was felt that the program merited use with students in conjunction with Academic Learning Advisor feedback (O’Neill and Russell, p. 103).
As benign as it may seem, an impartial technological writing assistant may help with the mechanical aspects of writing but falls flat regarding the pulse of a living audience. It would seem writers need other writers to hone their craft.
Writing, especially the sharing of writing, is a vulnerable experience. An experience that best meets the needs of writers when there is trust between the writer and the mentor. I just cannot imagine a scenario when, during an interview after winning an award for a piece of writing, an author would say, “Thank you for this prestigious award, I would like to thank the bots at Turnitin and Grammarly for encouraging me to keep my fingers on the keyboard.” It is just too weird. Writers need human interactions to offer authentic encouragement, send gentle accountability nudges, and help celebrate when a writer accomplishes a writing goal.
Perhaps my challenges with writing assistance programs reveal a need that I have to hear authentic words of encouragement. Maybe it’s the desire I have to physically see the reaction of a reader to the words I have shared. Or, it could simply be that the relationships built writer-to-writer are some of the best I have come to know. As much as I like to tell others that I have thick skin when it comes to writing, the truth is, I don’t. Writing is hard, but I would still rather have a warm-blooded practitioner of writing offer suggestions instead of a digital writing assistant without a pulse. Is my criticism fair? It depends on the writing situation.
I have found if my investment in a piece of writing is really high, for example, when I am hoping to publish in a scholarly journal, professional manuscript, or offering student feedback, I rely on writing assistance technology more often. I own a copy of the Hemingway editor and I like that helps to keep my natural wordiness down. It also offers suggestions but doesn’t let me simply accept the suggestions. If I want to make the changes, I have to intentionally do it. I learn better with intentionality. Not all features of writing assistive technologies are lackluster, as a short example, Grammarly’s tone detector has been promising while giving student feedback as well as emails to administrators. When I’m in a hurry my meaning can get lost in the rush. Grammarly’s tone detector helps me to have better control of what I am trying to say in the tone I am aiming for.
One writing assistance technology tool that has shown promise in recent years is Writable. As with the other tools I was skeptical at best, but I decided to give it a try because it integrated well with Google Docs, it offered live (and human) feedback opportunities, allowed for collaborative peer feedback, and a revision aid that focused on the writing. To give you an example, I have written this piece in Writable and have decided to share the results of the revision aid. See below:
Is this post perfect? No. Am I still wordy? Perhaps. Does Writable offer interesting feedback? Yes. When the revision aid results were first revealed all I saw was the green stars. Those little stars made me feel good. When I looked at the comments, my knee-jerk reaction was to glare at the red revision suggestions. Then, I remembered, they are suggestions. Writable wasn’t trying to be overly prescriptive with my writing. It was offering suggestions that, should I choose to apply them, might improve my writing. As a writer, I was still in control of my writing but was given a bit more insight that could focus the intentions of the piece, if I chose. There were no simple clicks that would revise the writing for me, if I wanted to improve, I was to make choices as a writer. As a writing assistive technology, the author of Writable’s programming seems to have their focus on the right target — the writing.
Hemingway, Grammarly, and Writable are tools I have considered using with my students but, to use them effectively, my first goal is to invite writing experiences that my students truly want to intellectually invest their time into. Student writers are not different from adult writers when it comes to finding the motivation to write. In a practical sense, a writing assistance tool alone will not yield significant writing gains for anyone without writing tasks that are relevant, engaging, and include intellectual investments for the writer.
Technology has certainly changed over the years, Mavis Beacon might have been my first typing teacher, but she wasn’t the last. Some like Turnitin and No Red Ink have not fit what I want for my student writers. Others like Hemingway and Grammarly have shown promise at times. Still others, like Writable, seem to be getting closer as an aid to my writing and the writing of my students, however, there is room for improvement.
For those of us with the aim to be “Ahead of the Code” with our writing instruction, it means offering writing experiences for students that meet their needs (and interests) first and, then, the needs of the curriculum. Likewise, the feedback our students receive should tap into their needs as a writer first instead of the needs of satisfying writing assistive technologies. An approach such as this is a hard pivot for many teachers, including myself but, if we are truly interested in growing students who identify as writers, it is a shift we will be required to take.
References:
Khoza, Simon Bheki. “Can Turnitin Come to the Rescue: From Teachers’ Reflections?” South African Journal of Education, vol. 35, no. 4, Dec. 2015. www.ajol.info, doi:10.4314/saje.v35i4.
O’Neill, Ruth, and Alex M. T. Russell. “Grammarly: Help or Hindrance? Academic Learning Advisors’ Perceptions of an Online Grammar Checker.” Journal of Academic Language and Learning, vol. 13, no. 1, Aug. 2019, pp. A88–107.
