Handouts for Tool Tryout Lab

1The email. "Hi! MarginMate just added AI Hints. When a student highlights a passage, it suggests a label like 'claim' or 'evidence' and explains why. Can we turn it on for the whole department for the argument unit? The demo looked amazing. — Priya, Grade 8 ELA, Live Oak Hills Middle School"

2Tool profile (from the fictional vendor's page). MarginMate is an annotation tool the district already uses. The new AI Hints feature "boosts close reading and saves teachers hours." Hints appear in a pop-up beside the highlight. The terms say student annotations "may be used to improve our models" unless the district opts out in its contract. No one on campus knows whether the district has opted out. Accessibility notes: none listed for the pop-up.

3Student data that prompted the goal. On the last argument unit, most Grade 8 students highlighted large blocks of text but could not say which sentence was the author's claim and which sentences were evidence. Their written responses summarized the article instead of analyzing its argument.

4Stand-in text for the Explore step (fictional op-ed). "Our town's library should stay open until 9 p.m. Many students have nowhere quiet to study after dinner. When the Willow Creek branch tried later hours last spring, the librarians reported that study rooms were full most evenings. Some worry about the cost, but the extra hours would cost less than the new parking lot the council approved. A town that says it values education should keep its library open when students need it."

5Printed AI Hints for the stand-in. Highlight of sentence 1 → Hint: "Claim. This is the author's main position." Highlight of sentence 3 → Hint: "Evidence. The author supports the claim with a report from a trial." Highlight of sentence 4 → Hint: "Counterargument and rebuttal. The author addresses a concern." Highlight of sentence 5 → Hint: "Evidence. The author's purpose is to inform readers about library budgets." (One of these hints is wrong. Sentence 5 restates the claim as an appeal to values, and the op-ed's purpose is to persuade.)

6Returned evidence, Team Cypress (Grade 8 ELA, two sections). Section 1 had hints on from the start; Section 2 could open a hint only after labeling a passage themselves. Observer notes: in Section 1, labels were correct more often, but most written explanations repeated the hint's wording, and three students said "I just clicked until it told me." In Section 2, students were slower, several changed a label after reading the hint, and two students wrote that they disagreed with a hint and explained why. One student using a screen reader could not reach the hint pop-up in either section.

7Returned evidence, Team Pecan (Grade 11 U.S. history, one section, primary source speech). Hints were available after a first attempt. Observer notes: English learners used the hint explanations as sentence models and wrote fuller claims than on the last unit. The tool labeled a sentence about the speaker's hopes as "evidence"; two students challenged it in their pair discussion and the teacher used the error with the whole class. The teacher noted that the hints saved no grading time, but students' written claims were easier to find in their responses.