This study explores how a literature-based English writing class integrated with ChatGPT influences middle school students’ perceptions of literature-based English learning, their self-expression, and their understanding of artificial intelligence. ...
This study explores how a literature-based English writing class integrated with ChatGPT influences middle school students’ perceptions of literature-based English learning, their self-expression, and their understanding of artificial intelligence. A six-session instructional unit was designed using excerpts from the young adult novel and implemented with five ninth-grade students at a private middle school in Korea. Data were collected through pre- and post-surveys, semi-structured interviews, teacher observation notes, student artifacts and ChatGPT interaction logs. The data were analyzed using thematic coding to identify patterns of perceptual and experiential change.
The findings revealed three major insights. First, prior to the intervention, students perceived literature-based English learning as test-oriented and focused on finding predetermined answers, expressing discomfort with conveying emotions or personal experiences in English. Their understanding of ChatGPT was also limited, viewing it primarily as a sentence generator. Second, after the instruction, students reconceptualized literature-based English writing as a space for personal expression, connecting literary characters’ emotions with their own experiences. They began to regard ChatGPT as a collaborative creative partner that supports idea generation, linguistic scaffolding, and expressive refinement. Students demonstrated critical AI literacy by selectively adopting, modifying, or rejecting AI-generated expressions. Third, the enhanced AI perception interacted with students’ literature-based learning, contributing to increased writing fluency, strengthened authorial agency, and more creative narrative construction. ChatGPT functioned not as a tool that replaces student thinking but as a scaffold that enabled students to articulate and extend their ideas in English.
This study suggests that generative AI can serve as an educational partner that supports meaning-making and self-expression in literature-based English education. The findings highlight the pedagogical potential of integrating AI into creative writing contexts, demonstrating how AI-mediated interaction can enrich learners’ engagement, interpretation, and authorship in the AI-augmented classroom.