Campfire Session — Writing Support

Learn how K-12 teachers use Flint to deliver AI-powered writing feedback, rubric-aligned scoring, and ELL supports with Socratic coaching and live facilitation.

Lulu Gao, Head of Teacher Experience at Flint | LinkedIn

In this session, our team explored practical strategies for integrating AI into writing education while maintaining pedagogical integrity and authenticity. Participants learned how to design effective writing feedback activities in Flint, address common challenges with AI writing assistance, and leverage platform features to support diverse learners. The session emphasized balancing AI's efficiency with the importance of the writing process itself, ensuring students develop critical thinking skills rather than relying solely on algorithmic support. We also had teachers share how they use Flint to create personalized, effective writing activities!

Content covered in this session included:

• Creating effective writing activities
• Supporting multilingual writers
• Using Flint for grammar help, essay structure, and vocabulary building
• Teacher shareouts

Slides from the presentation can be found here.

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Introduction • 00:00

• Lulu introduces the session and agenda.

Ice-breaking news • 01:57

• Lulu shares some relevant news to the topic at hand, including a Medium article by an English teacher on ChatGPT and writing.

Configuring Flint as a writing coach • 12:21

• A writing coach role is configured and described. The setup includes student context and a specific literary devices focus. The system will provide targeted feedback through Socratic questioning and device suggestions.
• Lulu shares the workflow for creating and refining a Flint activity. Lulu shows selecting a feedback prompt, prompts the system to draft tasks, and iterates on rubric and device emphasis for fifth-grade English as a second language students.
• Sparky features are explored to support flexible literacy tutoring. The team discusses manual versus simulated sessions and how to provide concise feedback without overwhelming students.
• The group also discusses how Sparky can respond in multiple languages and supports listening for students.

Student workflows, writing submissions, and document management • 25:17

• Lulu shares how to add and manage student writing within Flint, including uploading documents, typing directly, and attaching from drives.
  • Original documents can be read aloud/processed, with a note on handwriting clarity and image quality affecting accuracy.
• Lulu also highlights multiple activity types supported by Flint, such as reading comprehension, pre-writing templates, drafting with feedback, and multilingual writing, plus the ability to cite sources and perform initial research.
• Lulu walks the group through how to manage writing documents within Flint, noting version stages and the ability to print or export drafts. Emphasis is placed on highlighting student work to receive targeted feedback and on tracking changes as students interact with Flint.

Educator shareouts • 41:23

• Emmanuel Cruz shares how his classes have been piloting Flint for a year. Unlike English classes that focus on grammar, his emphasis is on analysis and content. Students upload assignments and receive rubric-based scores, along with clear strengths and areas for improvement.
• Emmanuel describes a Current Events project where students pasted article links, used Flint’s generated essay template, and revised repeatedly with AI feedback. Students improved their work step by step until they achieved top rubric scores. In an Economics Data Analysis assignment, Flint structured essays around introduction, body, and conclusion, providing writing guidance beyond grammar and spelling.
• The group discusses language settings: Flint supported Chinese and Spanish fluently, but Cruz and colleagues chose to restrict usage to English to encourage immersion. Still, he highly recommends the tool for any subject involving writing, from humanities to economics, because it motivates students to become more feedback-oriented and goal-driven.

Conclusion • 01:00:27

• Lulu concludes the session and highlights the plan for upcoming campfires.
• Lulu also shares QR codes for people to check out the Campfire Calendar, Flint's Instagram (which has a bunch of teacher-facing content), and the Flint Community.