At the start of the year, I have eight thirty-minute sessions with the fifth grade, to introduce them to the library and its resources. This year, I decided to swap out one of our sessions for an intro to AI. I started with a fifteen-minute lesson from Commonsense Media, but for the other half, I wanted to try something I read about in a Knowledge Quest article. The article’s author showed students a human-written poem and an AI-written poem, and discussed differences. As I could not locate the article, I decided it would be appropriate to have ChatGPT write the lesson plan as well as the poems, and I would adapt as necessary. Here is the lesson plan I ended up with:
Lesson Plan: Comparing AI-Written Poems to Human-Written Poems
Grade Level: 5th Grade
Duration: 15 minutes
Objective:
Students will compare and contrast a human-written poem and an AI-written poem that explore similar themes, examining the style, tone, and emotional depth of each.
Materials:
- Two short poems expressing similar themes (dreams)
o One human-written (“The Dream Keeper” by Langston Hughes)
o One AI-generated poem - Printed copies of both poems for each student or displayed on the board/screen.
- Chart or Venn diagram for comparison.
Lesson Breakdown:
- Introduction (2 minutes)
• Teacher: “Today, we’re going to look at two poems: one written by a person and one created by a computer program, called AI (Artificial Intelligence). We’ll compare them to see how similar and different they are.”
• Briefly explain what AI is and how it can be used to write poetry.
o This is generative AI
o I gave it the prompt to write a poem in the style of the author of the human-written poem, of about the same length, and with the same theme - Read the Poems (3 minutes)
• Do not reveal which is the human-written poem
• Read the first poem aloud, encouraging students to listen for emotions, imagery, and tone.
• Read the second poem aloud. Ask students to listen carefully for similarities and differences compared to the first poem. - Group Discussion (4 minutes)
• Ask students to share their initial thoughts on both poems:
o “Which poem do you like better? Why?”
o “What feelings or pictures come to mind when you hear each poem?”
o “Do they sound similar or different? How?” - Comparison Activity (4 minutes)
• Teacher: Lead students in filling out a comparison chart or Venn diagram.
o Similarities: Themes, structure, words, or phrases used.
o Differences: Tone, emotional depth, word choice, or if one feels more “natural” than the other.
• Prompt questions like:
o “Do both poems talk about the same idea in the same way?”
o “Does one poem feel more personal or emotional?”
o “Which one uses more descriptive or creative words?” - Vote (1 minute)
Teacher: Have students close eyes and vote on which is the human-written poem
Reveal how they did - Closing (2 minutes)
• Summarize the discussion by highlighting that AI can write poetry, but it may sound different from human writing because AI doesn’t experience emotions the way people do.
• Encourage students to think about how both human creativity and technology can create interesting things.
Assessment:
• Participation in the discussion and completion of the comparison chart or Venn diagram.
For the poems, I chose a Langston Hughes poem, since the 5th grade teacher loves Langston Hughes and shares his poetry with the students. I directed ChatGPT to write a poem in the style of Langston Hughes with the theme of dreams, and no longer than ten lines. Here are the two poems:
A Dream on the Wind
By ChatGPT
I heard a dream whisper, soft and low,
Telling me where I ought to go.
“Climb,” it said, “the mountain high,
Touch the stars in the endless sky.”
But when the day brings shadows near,
Dreams fade, held back by fear.
Still, the dream calls, steady and strong—
A hope, a wish, a waiting song.
I rise, I run, I will not stay—
For dreams will lead me all the way.
The Dream Keeper
By Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
When asked which poem they preferred, the students almost universally chose the AI poem, citing its flow and rhyme. We didn’t get to the Venn diagram as there wasn’t board space for it, and the teacher stepped in to help the kids see the differences between the two. The kids were quite perspicacious, once they really focused. However, about half did not identify the human-written poem when we voted.
For the next class, I decided to change out the poems so that the teacher wouldn’t be familiar with the human-written poem, either. I found a short poem called “Grandfather,” by Syrian-born poet Mohja Kahf, and directed ChatGPT to write a poem of similar length, with similar themes, in the style of a modern Middle-eastern poet. While I cannot reprint her poem, as it is still copyrighted, you can find it in The space between our footsteps : poems and paintings from the Middle East, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, c1998). Here is the AI-written poem:
Whispers of Time
By ChatGPT
I hold time in my hands like sand,
slipping through each creased finger—
you see it in my eyes, the years,
the suns that rose and fell.
I was once like you,
running toward a horizon too far to catch,
but now, I sit with the dusk,
listening to the world slow.
I wish I could gift you the patience
to wait for the wind to tell its story—
but youth is fire, burning for tomorrow,
while I learn to love yesterday.
Again, most of the class preferred the AI-written poem to the human-written poem, and actually, the teacher did too—and said he felt very conflicted about that. After we discussed the poems, though, almost everyone identified the human-written poem. Specificity is one of the commonalities I noted with both of the human-written poems as opposed to the AI poems.
While it was a successful and interesting lesson, I find that I, too, am conflicted about the results! If any of you have tried a similar experiment, I would love to hear about it in the comments.