Diffit is an AI-powered tool that can modify a reading, passage, or article to match any reading level, ensuring that every student can access content appropriate for their grade.

Features: The strength of Diffit lies in its capacity to produce “just right” resources — readings aligned with the curriculum, vocabulary, comprehension checks, and more. It can create worksheets and activities that align with the curriculum, along with summaries, key vocabulary words, multiple-choice questions, short answer questions, open-ended prompts, and it cites sources. These resources can be edited and copied, saving teachers a considerable amount of time while also ensuring that all students can access and engage with the content at their own level.

The activities fall into seven broad categories: Summarize Learning, Vocabulary, Reading Strategies, Writing Strategies, Text Analysis, Collaboration, and Critical Thinking. These immersive resources can be edited and copied, saving teachers a considerable amount of time while ensuring that all students can access and engage with the content at their own level. They can also be shared with Google Classroom or exported (depending on the resource) as a PowerPoint, PDF, Google Slides, Google Docs, or Google Forms.

Tom’s Take: Diffit is a terrific tool. English Language Arts teachers should take advantage of Diffit’s ability to craft texts that reach a range of abilities. It’s terrific for exposing ELA students to a wide range of topics at designated reading levels aimed at improving their reading comprehension.

Price: Diffit offers a free version with limited features and premium subscription plans starting at $9.99 per month or $99 per year.

Parlay is a tool powered by artificial intelligence that aids in conducting class discussions based on given topics or texts.

Features: Parlay It has the ability to formulate written or live discussion activities, boasting features such as secret identities, peer feedback, model submissions, and more. Additionally, it offers analytics and insights into student participation and performance.

Parlay is composed of three primary components: The Parlay Universe, which is a library of pre-existing discussion topics; the Written Roundtable, which is for written discussion activities; and the Verbal Roundtable.

Teachers have the option to search or browse discussion topics in Parlay Universe or create their own. The Parlay Genie is a tool infused with AI that assists in creating prompts where teachers can choose the number of questions they want, input the topic, and select the grade level.

Teachers can decide whether the activity will be conducted online or live. In an online discussion, teachers can choose to create a new course or select a course they have previously created. Parlay also includes an assessment tool that enables teachers to monitor, score, and provide feedback on students' participation in the discussion and their written responses.

Tom’s Take: I love Parlay’s versatility, in that it facilitates written or live discussion activities, and encourages participation through secret identities.

Price: Parlay is free for up to 30 students.

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a powerful large language model with many impactful uses in ELA teaching and learning.

Features: For one, ChatGPT is an invaluable tool for generating explanations, examples, and practice exercises across various aspects of English language learning. English language teachers can leverage ChatGPT to create learning experiences for students that build reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. ChatGPT can also generate texts on various topics for students to practice and improve their reading comprehension and text analysis skills.

Teachers can also utilize ChatGPT to provide clear and concise explanations for complex texts, aiding students' comprehension of challenging materials. ChatGPT can offer comprehensive explanations to idioms, phrases, and abstract concepts. In addition, ChatGPT can offer tailored feedback on students' writing, pinpointing areas for improvement. It can also generate examples of good writing, helping students understand how to structure their work.

Furthermore, ChatGPT can generate dialogues or role-plays that students can use to practice speaking. With GPT-4o, students can leverage their human-like speaking ability to discuss literary texts or characters.

Tom's Take: ChatGPT is an outstanding and flexible tool for English language teachers who value the power of personalized instruction and immersive learning and want a talented teaching assistant. To leverage it effectively, teachers need to construct effective prompts (see Chapter 3), so many teachers might gravitate towards Twee or Diffit for its seamless generation of teaching and learning materials. Yet, ChatGPT is the more versatile product. It’s worth the extra effort to leverage its multiple capabilities and create dynamic, engaging learning experiences that foster language proficiency, critical thinking, and literary understanding.

Price: ChatGPT is free to use

Twee AI is designed to enrich teaching and learning in English classrooms. It empowers educators through the generation of dynamic lesson content.

Features: Twee offers a versatile range of tools designed to facilitate the creation, analysis, and discussion of specific texts. For instance, Twee is adept at generating thought-provoking questions, tailored exercises, and quizzes centered on a given text. It also excels at crafting engaging lead-in activities to prepare students for text comprehension.

Furthermore, Twee boasts an array of vocabulary-enhancing resources, encompassing exercises like word-formation and word-definition matching. Additionally, it can construct concise dialogues utilizing target vocabulary and identify collocations within a text based on provided vocabulary parameters.

Twee doesn't overlook grammar, offering exercises that challenge students to select the correct verb form and unscramble words within sentences. Moreover, it provides a suite of tools —including video-based features — to stimulate discussions and inspire homework assignments.

Tom’s Take: Twee is a fantastic tool for English language teachers seeking to streamline their lesson planning process and create engaging, skill-building experiences for their students. User-friendly and featuring intuitive prompts and templates, Twee’s ability to generate customized content and immersive activities makes it a must-have resource for English language educators.

Price: Twee offers a free trial period, allowing educators to test its features multiple times. An individual Twee Pro account costs $11.95 a month or $89.95 per year.

MagicSchool is a platform powered by artificial intelligence that provides educators with over 50 tools, ranging from creating lesson plans to generating rubrics, academic content, and quizzes.

Features: MagicSchool offers more than 25 tools specifically for lesson planning. The most popular is the robust Lesson Plan Generator. This tool not only simplifies the process of lesson planning but also incorporates various features to make the topics more relevant and engaging for students.

Among its offerings, MagicSchool provides a Text Scaffolder Tool that makes reading accessible students at different levels and can break down challenging texts into easily understood chunks. it also enables users to condense long texts into small-sized summaries. In addition, there is a Text Dependent Questions tools that generates comprehension and literary technique questions about a select text, such as an article or book.

Moreover, MagicSchool’s tools are customizable to tailor the learning experience to each student's needs. So if you're in search of a tool that can effortlessly generate comprehensive lesson plans, MagicSchool could be just what you're looking for.

Tom’s Take: MagicSchool.AI is impressive. Its lesson planning tools are outstanding, featuring a vast selection of well planned and well organized tools to fit a range of English language arts teaching needs and reach a diverse range of students. It also provides teachers flexibility to select standards and specific curriculum topics. In other words, it’s customizable — and intuitive.

Price: MagicSchool offers a free trial period. Unlimited teacher access costs $8.33/mo ($99.96 yearly)..

Writable is an AI-powered teaching tool designed to enhance writing instruction through a scaffolded program that includes feedback and grading.

Features: Writable is a web-based platform aiming to free up teacher time, allowing for more individualized attention to students requiring extra help. With over 2 billion words written by 15.1 million student submissions across 16,287 schools and districts, Writable is widely utilized and tailored to various grade levels and targets from grades 3 to 12. It offers a balance of automation and teacher interaction, providing feedback across different writing genres and assignment options to suit students' abilities.

Writable features an anonymous peer review system and numerous AI tools that help automate grading and feedback processes. Teachers can customize the curriculum and rubric learning to meet specific goals and progression targets, offering real-time feedback to guide students effectively without being too time-consuming.

The platform supports integration with Google Classroom, Schoology, Canvas, and more, allowing for easy synchronization of class rosters or sharing with students via class codes. Teachers can explore pre-made options, modify prompts, rubrics, or supports, and assign tasks accordingly.

The dashboard in Writable is a valuable tool that lets teachers monitor progress and interact with students as needed. It highlights students requiring additional help, making it easy for teachers to track and address individual needs.

The incorporation of AI features such as suggested comments and automated grading saves time while ensuring tailored guidance for each student. Writable also fosters peer review as part of the learning process, enhancing students' mastery of skills while streamlining the workload for teachers.

Price: The platform offers a free trial, with subscription pricing starting as low as $1 per student per month, tailored to school and district needs through a quote system.

MindMeister is a popular AI-assisted online mind-mapping tool that helps with brainstorming, planning, and organization.

Features: With Mindmeister, users can create, share, and collaborate on mind maps in real-time, thus making it useful for both individual and group projects.

For ELA students, MindMeister has several uses. For one, It enables students to visually organize vocabulary, grammar, and language structures, helping them better understand and retain these elements. Also, language arts students can use MindMeister to map out essay structures, plot story arcs, and analyze literary works by breaking down themes, characters, and plot points.

Moreover, students can add images, attachments, comments, and notes to a mindmap, further enhancing Mindmeister’s usefulness. Mindmeister integrates with Google Workspace and MSTeams and has multiple sharing options.

Tom’s Take: I used Mindmeister extensively before it added AI features and a little bit since then. I’ve always found it easy to use and versatile, and I like its clean and vibrant interface. The free plan allows up to three mindmaps a month, enough for me and likely many students.

Price: Free account allows for three mindmaps a month. The personal account is only $3 a month and includes unlimited mindmaps.

Questionwell is an AI platform created by a middle-school teacher that generates a boundless supply of questions based on input reading material.

Features: Questionwell allows teachers to input any topic and reading material, such as a book, an article, a video, or a website, and generate questions based on the content and the level of difficulty. Teachers can choose from four types of questions: multiple choice, fill in the blank, short answer, and essential. They can also edit, delete, or add questions as they wish. By default, the AI is set to try to produce 20 unique questions.

Questionwell also provides learning objectives and standards alignment for each question set. Teachers can export the questions to various platforms, such as Kahoot, Quizziz, Google Forms, Microsoft Forms, Gimkit, Moodle, Canvas, Booklet, and Quizlet, and use them for assessment, review, or enrichment purposes. But Questionwell does not collect and work with any student data.

While there are several free question formats, if you want questions intentionally and explicitly aligned to Standards, then you have to buy a paid subscription.

Tom’s Take: Questionwell is intuitive and easy to use, provides plenty of useful questions, and provides tips along the way to help teachers. There are plenty of features to work with questions, though there isn’t the ability to add multimedia to questions. In addition to questions, teachers can create different assessments to address students' learning needs.

Price: Free for educators; Paid plan for extra features = $7/month or $70/year.

ChatMind is an innovative AI-powered mind mapping tool designed to streamline and enhance your brainstorming and project management experience.

Features: Chatmind transforms your questions, articles, or data into a comprehensive mind map with just a click. The tool offers context rewriting and dialogue expansion features, allowing for a more in-depth exploration of ideas. It also provides functionalities for framework sorting, brainstorming, project management, schedule arrangement, and note-taking, making it a versatile tool for various tasks.

Tom’s Take: For literature teachers and students, ChatMind can help in several ways. It can assist in mapping out plot structures, character relationships, and thematic elements, enhancing comprehension and retention of literary texts. The tool’s ability to summarize large amounts of text can be particularly useful when dealing with lengthy novels or plays. Additionally, the brainstorming feature can assist students in generating ideas for essays or projects, and the note-taking feature can help keep track of important quotes or passages for later reference.

Price: One Free credit a month. Basic account is $7.99/month