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From brain to page – making writing come to life
Education journalist and regular columnist for Education Today, SAL MCKEOWN, finds out how one primary school teacher has been using generative AI to help students develop their writing skills.
Here’s one I made earlier,’ said Jamie Lewry, the Year 6 teacher at Shawley Community Primary in Epsom Downs, part of LEO Academy Trust. In teacher- speak this would be: ‘Here’s What a Good One Looks Like.’ During the lesson, we saw many examples of WAGOLL from learners with a wide range of talents.
His class had been studying World War 2 and were tasked with describing the different characters in ‘Letters from the Lighthouse’ by Emma
Carroll. Set in 1941, this novel follows the adventures of Olive and her brother Cliff who are evacuated to the Devon coast after their older sister Sukie disappears during an air raid in London. Jamie wanted the class to think more deeply about the three children and bring them to life for readers. Using Adobe Express, a generative AI tool, their descriptions were translated into pictures in a fraction of a second. They could edit the details in the prompt until the software produced an image closer to their imagination. He started with a picture of the air raid warden taken from the book and asked the class to use their whiteboards and pens to jot down details and words that might have generated that image. They shared these, initially focusing on clothing with words such as ‘worn out’, ‘straps’, ‘dirty stains’. Jamie shared his prompt to show the level of detail needed: ‘1940s era’; ‘gentleman in his 60s,’ ‘tufts of white bristly hair’, his satchel is brown, battered, and the strap that holds it is frayed at the edges and has a rusty buckle.’ After this whole group activity, he set them to write a description of Olive, Cliff or Sukie, warning that their first attempt might not reflect the image in their head, ‘So make sure you copy that original prompt, paste it, improve it, and then generate that image again.’ Then Jamie honed in on facial expressions: ‘When you’re grumpy, what happens to your face? Look at each other, do a serious, grumpy expression.’ After various suggestions, the children settled on ‘scrunched up face’ and ‘slightly flushed cheeks’. Once they had an image that they liked, they tried different visual effects to reflect the era and style of the story. The photos option provides a contemporary eyewitness feel, sepia reflects a past age, watercolour is like a painting, art and graphic provides a book- illustration feel. If the image is still too modern, you can age it by adding ‘matte finish’ or ‘grainy film’ to the prompt.
A walking gallery
Once everyone had completed at least one description and generated an image, they opened a slideshow, pasted in the image and then walked around and looked at what everyone else had created. Because the pictures were all AI-generated, they all looked professional, so those with poor drawing skills had produced illustrations on a par with those by budding artists. The aim of this activity was ‘magpieing’. Pupils were encouraged to inspect each other’s work very closely, picking out interesting features in the image, then checking the prompt to identify the word or phrase that had generated that detail,
March 2026
www.education-today.co.uk 17 making a note of it for future use.
Generative AI is not just for character descriptions. Year 6 also shared their work on persuasive writing, a leaflet advertising Camp Green Lake. Slogans included: ‘Where the magic comes alive’, ‘Frowns turn upside down’. Potential visitors were hooked with classic advertising snares such as the Fear of Missing Out: ‘Are you tired of sitting at home all day?’ and guilt tripped with, ‘Where your child’s dreams come true.’ They were promised, ‘a desert with mountains, fresh water and beautiful lagoons,’ although one girl candidly admitted, ‘It’s not actually like this in the book. It’s kind of a lie to get people there.’
They also created information leaflets about a fantastical creature, The Purple Hydra, that was on the loose. One pupil went to town with a library of safety signs while red text on a black background warned readers: ‘Always remember that this dangerous and murderous reptile has erupting poisonous and toxic smoke that can hypnotise you in an instant flash, SO BE CAREFUL!!!!!’
Advantages of generative AI
This is an exciting technology that has a dramatic impact on engagement and writing skills. Children are testing their writing in real time and changes are obvious – often not the case when they are editing text. The teacher can walk round and get a sense of how the lesson is going. The learners are busy, not waiting to take turns and they get immediate feedback.
This activity could be done on paper, with pupils writing a paragraph and drawing a picture. They would hand it in and get a response from the teacher a few days later when it would no longer be fresh in their minds. It would be a finished product, set in stone. The technology provides instant results and this makes learning more powerful. Write the prompt, see what the picture looks like, edit the prompt, instant feedback. Learning takes place with each refreshed screen. Keep going until you get the result that you want. ‘When they’re writing in a book, a crossing out feels like an error,’ says Jamie, ‘whereas when it’s on screen, it is just part of a creative process.’
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