![[Hubspot] Student Agency in Age of AI](https://teach.noredink.com/hubfs/%5BHubspot%5D%20Student%20Agency%20in%20Age%20of%20AI.png "[Hubspot] Student Agency in Age of AI")
Student Agency in the Age of AI: Implications for Writing Instruction
Students are increasingly surrounded by artificial intelligence in their daily lives, often encountering it in ways that feel automatic, unavoidable, or imposed upon them. In classrooms, this can create tension: educators are asked to respond to rapidly evolving tools while ensuring that students remain active agents in the writing process, rather than handing over their voice, choice, and decision making to bots (or to technology). But what if we flipped that script and intentionally centered student voice and choice in how AI is used for writing?
Join Dr. Paige Whitlock, Literacy Director at NoRedInk, and Dr. Tanya Baker, Executive Director of the National Writing Project, on March 4, 2026, at 10:00 PT/1 ET as they moderate a panel of teacher-researchers who are involving students in making decisions about their AI use.
Sharing classroom examples and research-grounded insights, the panel will explore how honoring student agency can promote ethical AI use, deepen engagement, and strengthen writing development, while still maintaining clear instructional guidance.
In this session, participants will:
- Learn how student voice and choice can shape responsible and purposeful AI use in student writing
- Explore classroom strategies that empower students to decide when AI supports—or does not support—their writing and learning process
- Examine examples of instructional guardrails that balance academic integrity with innovation
- Apply research-informed practices to design writing tasks that foreground student thinking, agency, and reflection
Participants will leave with practical ideas they can adapt to their own classrooms, schools, or districts to support student-centered, ethical AI use in writing.
Register now!
Our Hosts
Dr. Paige Whitlock
Paige Whitlock works across NoRedInk teams to champion the needs of students, teachers, and administrators and ensure the product reflects the real challenges and opportunities of today’s classrooms. With experience teaching middle and high school ELA in seven states and serving as an ELA leader at both the school and district levels, Paige brings a deep, lived understanding of what it takes to teach literacy skills to diverse secondary learners.
Her passion for literacy and commitment to equitable instruction led her to pursue advanced research in disciplinary literacy at Virginia Tech, where her work earned the 2021 Dissertation Award. Paige draws on this blend of classroom experience, leadership perspective, and research expertise to help districts strengthen writing instruction and to guide NoRedInk’s efforts to build tools that genuinely support educators and the students they serve.
Dr. Tanya Baker
Tanya Baker is a nonprofit leader with more than 25 years of experience in education. After working as a teacher and literacy coach, at NWP Tanya has worked with many funders and partners, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and West Ed. Through these relationships and in collaboration with excellent teacher-leaders, she has built and managed national programs that connect educators to work together on areas of interest and problems of practice that intrigue and trouble them.
For more than two decades Tanya has been committed to and shaped by the National Writing Project’s mission and vision and holds a deep commitment to practices that respect teachers and students. She strives to design learning experiences that begin with a presumption of competence and are relentlessly collaborative and deeply joyful.