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AI Assistants in Personify

Everything to know about the 5 different AI assistants offered in Personify

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Written by Evan Riley
Updated this week

What Are Assistants

  • Assistants in Personify are AI-powered tools you can choose to make available in an assignment. Each assistant has a different focus, like checking grammar, giving rubric-based feedback, or supporting reflection. How do I set up an assignment?

  • You decide which assistants to enable for your students. If you don’t turn one on, it won’t appear in their writing workspace at all.

  • Assistants are designed to guide students and help them improve their own work. They cannot and will not write or complete assignments for students.

  • If you enable an assistant, it will appear in the bottom toolbar of the writing workspace where students can open it and interact with it while they work.

  • Every time a student uses an assistant, the interaction is stored in the Assistant History, so you can see exactly how the tools were used during the writing process.

Rubric Assistant

The Rubric Assistant uses the rubric and assignment instructions you’ve written to give students feedback while they draft. When students open it in the writing workspace, it asks “Would you like me to compare your paper to the assignment requirements?”

When they say yes, it scans their draft against your rubric and points out things like:

  • whether the thesis is clear and focused

  • if required sections are missing

  • where they might need more detail or evidence to meet expectations

By referencing your rubric categories, it guides students toward meeting the specific expectations you’ve outlined.

Grammar Assistant

The Grammar Assistant reviews student drafts for grammar, spelling, and punctuation issues. You can choose how much feedback it provides by setting the assistance level:

Low

  • Identifies the first instance of each type of error

  • Explains why it’s incorrect

  • Requires the student to correct the rest on their own

Medium

  • Identifies the first two instances of each error type

  • Explains why they are incorrect and demonstrates how to fix them

  • Requires the student to correct the remaining errors independently

High

  • Identifies every error in the draft

  • Explains why each one is incorrect

  • Demonstrates how to fix them

  • Provides corrected examples for the student to review

Writing Assistant

The Writing Assistant gives students feedback on how to develop and improve their draft. When enabled in the writing workspace, students can open the assistant to get guidance on strengthening their writing.

It focuses on things like:

  • clarity of ideas and explanations

  • organization and flow between paragraphs

  • ways to expand or deepen their arguments

  • suggestions to make writing more precise and engaging

Translation Assistant

The Translation Assistant helps students translate their writing into another language. It is especially useful in multilingual classrooms or when students are working in a non-native language.

It can:

  • translate a passage the student writes into a different language

  • translate text from another source into the language of the assignment

  • help students compare meaning across languages to ensure accuracy

Blank Template

The Blank Template gives you the flexibility to create a custom assistant for your assignment. Unlike the other assistants, which are prebuilt with a specific purpose, the Blank Template starts empty and lets you define its role.

When you set it up, you’ll see options to include assignment variables like:

  • assignment instructions

  • rubric

  • current student work

  • word count

You can then write a prompt that tells the assistant how to use this information. For example, you might build a custom assistant that checks whether students have included a minimum number of sources, or one that asks reflection questions tied directly to your course outcomes.

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