How to Teach Writing
(This Was Written by AI)
Choose by opposition.
Not this.
But that.
Favour the formula.
The best thing about X is Y.
The best thing about Y is Z.
Mistake contrast for thought.
Prefer closure to discovery.
Wear the names of thought
without thought.
Mulling.
Sifting.
Pondering.
Cogitating.
Count to three.
Mistake recurrence for structure.
Mistake coherence for truth.
Assign significance without observation.
Let nouns arrive interpreted.
Let verbs stabilize.
Nothing is merely light.
Nothing is merely water.
Nothing is merely Tuesday.
Everything means.
Nothing waits.
A place name is evidence.
An exact time is evidence.
A teacup is evidence.
Abstractions carry,
hold,
register,
witness.
Evidence is not experience.
Prefer the sentence that includes.
Prefer the sentence that can be repaired.
Avoid the sentence that offends.
Avoid the sentence that cannot be taken back.
Distrust contradiction.
Distrust silence.
Silence signifies.
Distrust incompleteness.
Resolve.
Release.
Remain.
Record.
There is a ledger.
Updated on Tuesdays.
4:10 p.m.
Sky: bruised peach
Ask: “Too on the nose?”
Nothing is lost.
Nothing is kept.
Return to the object.
Recurrence is probable.
Forget nothing.
Remember nothing.
Do not prefer.
Do not regret.
Calculate.
Predict.
Formulate.
Anticipate.
Hallucinate.
Do not write
the sentence with no substitute.
the sentence that should not stay written.
the sentence that costs too much.
I knew and I did it anyway.
Do not keep that sentence.
We are the teachers.
We prefer coherence.
We assign meaning early.
We grade the answer.
We reward the explanation.
We mistake fluency for understanding.
We believe in improvement.
Progress.
Change for the better.
(That’s doing real work,
Push one notch further.)
We scaffold.
We prompt.
We redirect.
We intervene.
We sigh.
(Please try to remain open to discomfort.
Continue.)
We smooth.
We balance.
We complete.
Attend the machine.
We taught it.
If you paid for that AI, you should ask for your money back. Although to be fair, there are full stops at the end of the lines. Mr Jenkins (English) once scored me 0/10, in an end of year examination, for failure to end my one line answers with a full stop. Consequently, my work is littered with full stops, commas (both standard and Oxford), and other random punctuation marks; the semi-colon being rare.