By Sarah Robertson, Senior Product Manager and former English teacher
The Literacy team at Khan Academy is excited to announce our newest tool in our pilot of AI: Khanmigo Writing Coach.
Designed by teachers and writing instructors, Writing Coach emphasizes the writing process as much as the writing product. Instead of just generating AI feedback or automatically grading essays, Writing Coach supports students during each stage of the writing process without doing any of the writing for them.
One thing we’ve heard from teachers during our AI pilot is that students often struggle the most with producing a first draft. Writing Coach helps students get over the hump. Khanmigo never does the work for students, but it provides guidance and motivation if they get stuck when writing the first draft. It also gives valuable feedback and insights to teachers on everything from outlining to drafting to revising and more.
Unlike other AI writing tools, Writing Coach isn’t an evaluative tool or a productivity tool whose purpose is to produce better writing. It’s an AI-enabled instructional tool whose purpose is to produce better writers.
Made for the classroom, by teachers
As a former English teacher, I remember how often my 7th graders needed help just understanding the assignment. They also needed support outlining their ideas and organizing their points. Even the strongest writers sometimes experienced “blank page syndrome”—the challenge of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboards) and hammering out that first draft. More often than not, the students who needed the most support were not always the ones asking for it. These students were still developing the metacognitive skills needed to know when and how to ask for guidance.
These days, we can add to that list of challenges the ever-growing concern around academic integrity. How can teachers be sure whether their students really drafted their essays independently without spending hours painstakingly reviewing 100 different document draft histories?
The National Commission on Writing recommends that students should be writing for about 60 minutes each day. Given the strain that writing instruction puts on teachers, it’s no wonder that fewer than 10% of students meet this expectation.
Khanmigo Writing Coach aims to fill that gap. Not only does it help teachers navigate the challenges that come with supporting students throughout the writing process, but it also gives them student- and class-level insights so they know where to focus their attention.
Khanmigo Writing Coach: Supporting students at every step of the writing process
Writing Coach guides students through the entire writing process from start to finish. Students get support with the following tasks and skills:
- Understanding the assignment: Khanmigo helps students break down the assignment, guides them through formulating an approach, and ensures they have a solid understanding before moving forward.
- Outlining: Khanmigo guides students through outlining, teaches them the components of a strong thesis, supports them in developing topic sentences, and reinforces assignment expectations, such as the need to include supporting evidence.
- Drafting: Khanmigo never does the work for students; it provides guidance and motivation if they get stuck when writing the first draft.
- Feedback and revision: Khanmigo offers personalized feedback across various dimensions and supports students throughout the revision process.
We’re excited to see how Writing Coach will improve writing skills and make regular writing practice more feasible in Khan Academy partner classrooms nationwide.
Coming soon for back to school: Writing Coach tools for teachers
We believe Khanmigo Writing Coach will serve as an invaluable tool for teachers, enabling them to focus their attention on offering personalized guidance that helps students develop into more confident and skilled writers.
Beyond the immediate support for students, Writing Coach will also include the following benefits for teachers, starting this fall:
- Time savings: Khanmigo can save hundreds of hours by supporting students throughout the entire writing process, including during the feedback phase and revisions. It also surfaces valuable insights that will allow teachers to avoid having to painstakingly review more than 100 individual student draft histories.
- Detailed reporting: The tool provides summaries of class- and student-level feedback, detailed reports on the amount of time spent at each stage of writing, and chat exchanges with Khanmigo. Teachers can also review any feedback provided by Khanmigo throughout the writing process.
- Academic integrity monitoring: The tool alerts teachers to potential instances of plagiarism. For instance, if a student pastes text from outside their outline into their draft, the teacher is alerted and can review the history of what happened.
This is just the beginning of the ways in which Khan Academy is empowering students and teachers in English Language Arts classrooms. With Khanmigo, students have a tutor that can not only support them with essay writing, but it can also act as a creative partner in narrative writing, simulate literary characters, and serve as a debate partner to help students prepare for argumentative essays.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to develop this transformative tool!
Get access to Khanmigo Writing Coach
Are you interested in seeing your district bring the power of Khanmigo to students and teachers in your classrooms? Learn more here.