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A little about me and the purpose of this blog. I am a licensed high school teacher (Language Arts 6 - 12) in the state of Tennessee going on 13 years now.  I have 7 children and drive a school bus.  Love me or hate me, none of my students will tell you that I am a typical school teacher.  I, like many, believe that education is woefully equipped to keep pace with technology.  As a technology enthusiast and educator publishing on a crypto website, I am trying to do my small part to bridge this gap for as many people as I can.  Recently, the development of AI has created an accelerated urgency for education to take its head out of the sand and teach relevant skills in the classroom.  The resources, lessons, and philosophy I publish here, I use in my own classroom, and anyone (especially homeschoolers) can use this blog as a resource to supplement their own instruction.  If you are new to my blog, I suggest starting at the beginning as I will be structuring my lessons here the same way I would for my classroom.  Tips are appreciated.  Questions and feedback in the comments are welcome. So if you are a teacher, student, or homeschooler that is motivated to learn about, teach, or utilize all available technology in education (or know someone who is), I encourage you to give me a follow:  https://x.com/TheRealMrE09

And to view  my entire blog:  //https://www.publish0x.com/education-and-ai-resources-and-instruction

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Important Technology Update!

Since the release of Grok 3, I have been using it almost exclusively.  Creating multiple choice questions of a complicated nature can be tricky for AI.  Oftentimes, you have to “fight” with the AI in order to get it to do exactly what you want.  Grok 3’s Deep Think makes this process MUCH easier and faster.  Exact wording of prompts is critical when making materials such as these, but even if you … or I … don’t get a prompt quite right, Deep Think will intuitively understand what is required.  I HIGHLY recommend trying the paid version of Grok for at least a month to see the difference.

11-12.L.CSE.1: Demonstrate command of grammar and usage, including complex usage matters.

Using AI to Master Semicolons part 2

If you read Part 1, you should know by now that semicolons can be used to join two complete sentences that are directly related to each other.  Now, it's time to get fancy.

Conjunctive Adverbs are words that can be used with semicolons in order to more specifically define the relationship between the two sentences that they are joining.  Here is a list of the most common conjunctive adverbs:

Accordingly   Additionally   Afterwards   Although   Anyway     Besides   Consequently   Conversely   Finally   Further   Furthermore   Hence   However    Instead   Likewise   Meanwhile   Moreover   Nevertheless   Nonetheless    Otherwise   Rather   Similarly   Still   Then   Therefore   Thus   Yet

Again, these words allow the author to be very specific in the relationship between the two ideas that he/she is connecting.  They are fancy, and because they are fancy, they require a fancy set of punctuation marks.  When used to combine two complete sentences, these words will always be “hugged” by a semicolon and a comma.  Example:

Do not use these words to argue with your girlfriend or your mother; moreover, if you try, you will sound so fancy that she will accuse you of thinking you know everything!

And since we are combining two complete ideas with our fancy words, we will be even more fancy and combine two lessons into one!

On the ACT, students will be asked to correctly identify two aspects of using conjunctive adverbs:  the punctuation and the proper usage.  Here are two examples using the same sentence from above on how this concept may appear on the ACT.

1. Do not use these words to argue with your girlfriend or your mother moreover, if you try, you will sound so fancy that she will accuse you of thinking you know everything!
   1. mother; moreover,
   2. mother, moreover
   3. mother, moreover,
   4. No Change 

(In this example, the correct answer is A because it is the only option that has the correct punctuation on both sides)

1. Do not use these words to argue with your girlfriend or your mother; moreover, if you try, you will sound so fancy that she will accuse you of thinking you know everything!
   1. however
   2. instead 
   3. although
   4. No Change

(In this example, the correct answer is D because it is the only appropriate transition word option)

Conjunctive Adverbs/Transition Words fall into one of six categories:

Similarity/Continuation              Contrast         Cause/Effect

Sequence                  Reinforcement           Example   

In the second question, the relationship between the two sentences indicates that the second sentence is a continuation of the idea from the first sentence; therefore, you cannot select a word that would contrast the two sentences.  The other three options are all words that contrast the ideas on either side of it.  

Selecting the appropriate transition word is a skill that can only really be mastered with practice; therefore, AI is an exceptionally good use for mastering this concept, as it can quickly generate practice examples and give instant feedback and explanations.

AI Prompt for Advanced Punctuation practice:  

I am an English teacher that is creating practice problems for my students to study advanced punctuation, particularly correctly placing semicolons and commas around conjunctive adverbs. I need to create problems in the style of the ACT. Alternate labeling the multiple choice options ABCD or FGHJ. There are 3 concepts that need to be addressed. Correctly placing the semicolon, correctly placing the comma, and determining whether or not a semicolon is required (cases where these words are used but do not require a semicolon). Ensure that there is only one correct answer in the choices and the position of the correct answer varies from question to question.

Here is an example: 1. Do not use these words to argue with your girlfriend or your mother moreover, if you try, you will sound so fancy that she will accuse you of thinking you know everything! A. mother; moreover, B. mother, moreover C. mother, moreover, D.  No Change. Create 10 problems such as this.  Do not provide an answer key or explanation until asked to do so.

AI Prompt for Transition Word Practice:

I also need to create problems that help students to select the most appropriate transition word in a given sentence. Transition words fall into one of six categories: Similarity/Continuation, Contrast, Cause/Effect, Sequence, Reinforcement, Example. Create a practice problem for each category. Do not provide the correct answer or an explanation unless asked to do so. Here is an example of the type of exercise I want to create: Do not use these words to argue with your girlfriend or your mother; moreover, if you try, you will sound so fancy that she will accuse you of thinking you know everything! A. however B. instead C. although D. No Change

Ensure that the answer is not always No Change so that the student has the opportunity to find the correct answer in several different multiple choice positions from question to question.

Creating a Bookmarked Quiz Generator

In order to more easily facilitate rapid fire practice of these two related concepts, I find it very important to Create Bookmarked Conversations in order to isolate the AI’s focus onto a single set of instructions.  This way every time you generate practice problems you will remind the AI of its specific purpose.  For example, I have a bookmarked conversation for each specific concept that I use to create materials for my students.  This one is labeled “Advanced Punctuation and Transition Words.”  Examples of others are Specific Job, Extra Information, Commas, etc.  Once you have labeled this conversation, enter the following prompt into this conversation in order to solidify the AIs understanding of its purpose:

 Now designate between the two types of exercises as “Advanced Punctuation” and “Transition Words” so that I can use this conversation as a Quiz Creator for each of the two topics.

Now you can simply ask the AI to create practice after practice simply by naming them.