AI natural language generation (NLG) is a process where computer systems
generate human-comprehensible language texts from information. It can become an
integral part of a human's creative writing process. Importantly, youths can
learn to apply NLG in mainstream education and become better prepared for
AI-enhanced writing jobs and other writing endeavors. To explore how students
apply NLG to creative writing, we designed and implemented the 1st Human-AI
Creative Writing Contest in a Hong Kong secondary school. In this contest, each
student participant wrote a short story of up to 500-words using the student's
own words and words generated by a computer and built on open-source language
models. We designed four text generators for the contest as the computer's text
entry. Additionally, using design-based research, we developed seven workshops
where students learned to write with the four text generators and answered
reflection questions. In analyzing four students' short stories and
adjudicators' scores for the stories, we found different strategies in terms of
the number and the type of text generator words that students used. Some
strategies appeared more sophisticated than others. In analyzing students'
reflections, we found students could describe text generator input and output
as units of thought. Besides, students showed preferences for text generators;
and they expressed a range of feelings when writing with text generators. The
findings provide design implications not only for NLG applications in formal
schooling but also suggest pedagogical strategies for AI curriculum.

该研究实验了人工智能通过语言生成实现的创意写作，参赛学生使用四个文本生成器的输出作为创意创作的一部分，并在反思问题的指导下评估了他们的写作表现，研究结果有助于更好地应用自然语言生成技术于教育教学。