Using Literature As A Springboard For Your A.I. Unit

I don’t know about you, but I’ve seen a major change this year with my students when I compare it to last year at this time. The difference? In short: A.I.’s accessibility and capabilities. A year or two ago, my students who had a strong moral code were wary of A.I. and terrified that using it was cheating. So, most of them didn’t use it, and I had only a few minor issues with a few students.

Things are different now.

Now, nearly all my students (9th graders) use it many times every day. This is why we must discuss it openly and directly with our students.

But how do we go about this? One great way to jumpstart these conversations is through using literature as a springboard.

Using literature to ground and guide the conversation allows us to open the door for nuanced conversations with our students. If we just start discussing A.I. in the classroom it can feel heavy handed, and students might zone out or assume, “Of course my teacher doesn’t want me to use A.I.; she’s old; she doesn’t get it.”

Instead, what if we open the door for students to consider complex issues that come up in several texts (both fiction and nonfiction), allow them to talk with peers through small groups and Socratic seminars, and then develop a layered understanding of this complex situation we have going on in the world right now?

Anchor Texts For Your A.I. Unit

If you have older high school students, check out my ideas for using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as an anchor text to discuss issues around A.I. This blog post will be devoted to a unit for younger high school students. They should absolutely be examining these important topics, but this unit is going to use a high-interest A.I. novel to draw them in.

I love for students to examine multiple texts within a unit, but it’s usually a good idea to have one key text where students can practice skills of annotation, analysis, predicting, questioning, and more. A longer text allows them to go deep, but we will still have room in this unit for multiple short texts including Ted Talks, podcast episodes, nonfiction articles, and even poetry.

This semester, I’m using Hard Wired by Len Vlahos as an anchor text for this AI-focused unit. I’m using this unit with 9th-grade students during the 2025-2026 school. Many of my students have learning differences and dyslexia, so I’ve chosen a text that is accessible in terms of decoding, but still allows for lots of deep thinking and real-world connections.

Although we are discussing A.I. and its benefits and drawbacks, I also want to guide my students toward being stronger readers and thinkers. They’ll need to annotate the text as they read for both characterization and themes.

Essential Questions for Our A.I. Unit

Every unit needs a strong essential question or two to serve as a focus for the unit. I have two areas I want to dive into with this unit and those areas will shape the essential questions and focus of the unit.

The unit E.Q.s are:

What are the benefits and drawbacks of A.I.?
What does it mean to be human?

Benefits and Drawbacks of AI

One big piece of this unit will be discussing both the benefits and drawbacks of using AI. We’ll discuss this on an individual level as well as on a societal and global level. I have a few different ideas planned for how we will wrestle with these topics including a choice board that includes videos, podcast episodes, and short articles.

After students spend time reading, watching, and listening to a variety of texts, they’ll come together in a Socratic seminar or a fishbowl discussion to discuss their thoughts and questions on the reading.

What does it mean to be human?

This is a key question that arises in the anchor text that we’ll read in this unit, but it’s also an incredibly relevant question for us to discuss right now in our classrooms. There’s been an alarming number of teens who have developed friendships and relationships with chatbots, and in some cases, this has proven fatal. What are these teens needing that the chat bots are providing? What do humans need at our core? All such timely questions that this unit will allow us to explore.

One mini lesson I used to get students wrestling with this topic is this Venn Diagram mini lesson. Students had to divide characteristics into a Venn Diagram, distinguishing what aspects humans have, A.I. have, or both have. See the bottom of this post for this lesson link. This was a fantastic discussion starter!

Free Resources:

Feel free to download the activity above, in which students compare AI and humans. I’m also linking to the anticipation guide and stations activity I used for this unit.

Check Out the PD all about AI:

After getting so many responses about these materials, I put together a workshop on the strategies I used and a step-by-step method for how you can do this too.

Find out more about the AI workshop here: