How Do Students Use ChatGPT as a Writing Support?

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Bibliographic Details
Title: How Do Students Use ChatGPT as a Writing Support?
Language: English
Authors: Sarah Levine (ORCID 0000-0002-8986-3229), Sarah W. Beck (ORCID 0000-0002-2767-5097), Chris Mah, Lena Phalen, Jaylen PIttman
Source: Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 2025 68(5):445-457.
Availability: Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 13
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: High Schools
Secondary Education
Descriptors: Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence, Technology Uses in Education, Writing (Composition), High School Students, Student Behavior, Persuasive Discourse, Cues
DOI: 10.1002/jaal.1373
ISSN: 1081-3004
1936-2706
Abstract: Educators and researchers are interested in ways that ChatGPT and other generative AI tools might move beyond the role of "cheatbot" and become part of the network of resources students use for writing. We studied how high school students used ChatGPT as a writing support while writing arguments about topics like school mascots. We asked: What did students prompt ChatGPT to do? And how did students take up ChatGPT's responses to those prompts? We used Flower and Hayes' writing model to analyze screencasts of students interacting with ChatGPT and one another as they planned, drafted, and reviewed their arguments. Our data show that while planning and drafting, students primarily asked ChatGPT for ideas and then built upon those ideas to develop their own arguments. While reviewing, they generally used ChatGPT as they might use Grammarly or other editing tools. Students also compared their writing with that of ChatGPT, which allowed them to identify their unique writing voices and build meta-level understandings of rhetorical choices and effects. Our study indicates that ChatGPT can become a part of a social, distributed model of writing, and that students can use ChatGPT as a resource for writing without sidestepping the processes of planning, drafting, and reviewing.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1460644
Database: ERIC
Description
Abstract:Educators and researchers are interested in ways that ChatGPT and other generative AI tools might move beyond the role of "cheatbot" and become part of the network of resources students use for writing. We studied how high school students used ChatGPT as a writing support while writing arguments about topics like school mascots. We asked: What did students prompt ChatGPT to do? And how did students take up ChatGPT's responses to those prompts? We used Flower and Hayes' writing model to analyze screencasts of students interacting with ChatGPT and one another as they planned, drafted, and reviewed their arguments. Our data show that while planning and drafting, students primarily asked ChatGPT for ideas and then built upon those ideas to develop their own arguments. While reviewing, they generally used ChatGPT as they might use Grammarly or other editing tools. Students also compared their writing with that of ChatGPT, which allowed them to identify their unique writing voices and build meta-level understandings of rhetorical choices and effects. Our study indicates that ChatGPT can become a part of a social, distributed model of writing, and that students can use ChatGPT as a resource for writing without sidestepping the processes of planning, drafting, and reviewing.
ISSN:1081-3004
1936-2706
DOI:10.1002/jaal.1373