How IGNITE Resources Are Built

I use AI as a partner when building these resources, and I'd rather say so transparently than leave you wondering. Open disclosure of AI usage is central to my whole philosophy and I'm leading by example here. Such disclosures should be safe to make.

For over 35 years I adapted my classroom practice to new technology as it arrived, from the first computer labs, to the mainstream adoption of the internet, through to generative AI, always asking the same question: does this technological tool make student thinking sharper, or does it let students skip the thinking altogether. That question is what the IGNITE Framework is built on, and it's the question I apply to my own work.

What I Do and What AI Does

Every resource starts with my curriculum goals, assessment design, and instructional intent, based on over 35 years teaching Secondary English in Ontario. From there, I work with AI over many hours and days generating possibilities, testing ideas, trying to break the instructions to see where they fail, interrogating the AI, drafting and redrafting wording, and building document architecture and layout. I reject more suggestions than I keep.

One Example of Why That Matters

I asked AI to research current Indigenous texts that might resonate with Grade 9 students across a range of reading levels. The response came back recommending Thomas King's "Borders" as the anchor text for an Indigenous-voices unit. However, King accepted genealogical findings in 2025 that he has no Indigenous ancestry. The recommendation looked well supported: the Ministry's own curriculum document still lists King, and so do reading lists across the educational sector. A teacher following the plan would have had no obvious reason to question it. Personally, I chose to replace the reading with Drew Hayden Taylor's "Take Us to Your Chief," since the author is an Ojibwe writer from Curve Lake First Nation. That's one example of why using AI as a partner, whether you're a student, a teacher, or anyone else, has to mean more than merely proofreading what it gives you.

Who Decides

I make the final decisions about what goes into a resource, and I stand behind those decisions. Nothing goes into a resource because AI produced it and sounded good. Every rubric descriptor, every success criterion, and every piece of student-facing language is there because I've either used it myself or judged that it would work in a classroom today.

Where This Fits in the Framework

I hold students to the IGNITE Framework for AI use in Secondary English, so I've held my own work to it too. These resources sit at Emergent, the top level, where the result is something neither the person nor the AI could have produced alone.

Here's why. I don't think I'd have built these on my own, at least not in this form. The testing, the breaking and the redrafting I did with AI changed what they became. But AI couldn't have built them either. It's never taught a class, it doesn't know my students, and it can't tell what will hold up in front of thirty teenagers. That part was me, which is why so much of what it suggested got cut.

I'm judging my own work, so you're welcome to disagree. For Grades 11 to 12, the framework asks, "What does it mean to author something with AI's help?" This is my answer.

You Don't Need AI to Use These Resources

Building a resource with AI doesn't mean you need AI to use it. Unless a product says otherwise, everything I create is designed to work with no AI tool involved.

If you use AI in your own planning and want to talk about what that looks like in an English classroom, you're welcome to reach out by emailing me at george@igniteframework.ca.