Sage
Sage is the writing tutor built into Deskpad Learn, and it sits beside students while they work, helping them think their way through whatever they are trying to say. It behaves the way a patient teacher does during office hours, asking the questions that move a draft forward and helping a student find their next idea on their own.
How Sage helps in the moment
When a student gets stuck, they can tell Sage what they are working on, and it responds to the actual draft in front of them. It might ask what the student is really trying to argue in a paragraph, notice a claim that could use some evidence, or help them work through a sentence that has gotten away from them. Every reply is meant to leave the student with a clearer sense of their own thinking and a concrete next step they can take in their own words.
The thinking stays with the student
The most important thing about Sage is that the writing always belongs to the student. If a student asks it to write a paragraph or hand over a thesis, Sage guides them toward writing it themselves, so they keep ownership of every idea and every sentence. That is the whole reason it works the way it does, because the point of an assignment is for a student to come out of it a stronger writer than they went in.
Teachers stay in control
Teachers decide how much help Sage offers on any given assignment, and they can cap how many messages a student sends or leave it open, depending on what the work calls for. Everything a student and Sage say to each other is saved and visible to the teacher afterward, so the help a student received is always part of the picture when their work gets reviewed.
Wherever students write
Sage works inside the Deskpad Learn editor, and it also works directly in Google Docs through the Deskpad Learn add-on, so students can get the same kind of help in the place where they are already writing.