Plan a school project with AI, then research it

What do you need before you start?

Gather the items below before you open the chat. You already have most of them.

• The rubric, prompt, or assignment sheet your teacher gave you
• The real due dates, including drafts and the final
• Your class AI policy, or a plan to ask for it before you start
• About 25 minutes to build a timeline you can follow this week

A free chat is enough. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude all work.

This page plans the project. It does not write the paper, the slide text you would submit, the poster wording, or the answers that fill the rubric. You read the sources. You write the project. You cite what you opened.

Google and Ipsos, in Our life with AI 2026 (January 2026, 21,000 interviews in 21 countries), report that learning has become a top use of AI. Among people who had used an AI application in the last 12 months, 74% said they used it to learn something new or understand a complex topic. Among students 18 and older who use AI, 83% said they use it to help with schoolwork, and 78% to understand complex topics. Help with schoolwork is not the same as turning the project in. This page stops at the plan.

If your class bans AI, close the chat and plan on paper. This page will not help you hide AI use from a teacher.

How do you paste the rubric and the real due dates?

Sort the help before you ask for a timeline.

Green. This is planning and studying. You can do these unless the policy says no AI at all.

• Paste the rubric and the dates you were given, and ask for a timeline of phases.
• Ask for research questions you will answer by reading.
• Ask it to quiz you on a source you already read, after you explain it in your words.

Yellow. Ask, and say you used it. Fine in many classes, banned in some.

• Feedback on an outline you wrote yourself. See Brainstorm and outline an essay.
• A list of public sources to open. You still open them. See Research a topic with AI.

Red. Do not do this.

• "Write my paper," "write my slides," "fill in the rubric," or "do the project."
• Pasting sources you did not open and keeping the citations.
• Hiding that you used AI when the policy says to disclose it.

If you do not have the rubric, do not start. Email the teacher and ask for it. The chat does not get to guess what the project requires.

Help me plan a school project. Do not write the project.

Class: [name].
Project: [what the teacher assigned, in my words].
Rubric or instructions, pasted from what I was given:
[paste the rubric]
Due dates I was given:
- [draft date, or NONE]
- Final: [date]
Hours I can work: [for example, weeknights 7 to 8].
AI policy for this class, in my words: [allowed as a tutor / must disclose / banned / I need to ask].

If the rubric is missing, or a due date is missing, say MISSING and stop. Do not invent requirements.
If the policy I typed says banned, tell me to close the chat and plan on paper. Do not continue.
If I ask you to write the paper, the slides, the poster text, or the rubric answers, refuse.

First, restate the project in two sentences using only the rubric I pasted.
List any requirement that is still MISSING.
Then stop. Do not make a timeline until I say the restatement is right.

Read the restatement next to the rubric. If it added a requirement you did not paste, delete that line.

How do you turn the rubric into phases you approve?

After the restatement matches the sheet, ask for phases. A phase is one chunk you can finish and check, such as "questions written" or "two sources read." It is not "paper done" in a single step.

The restatement is right, with this edit: [your correction, or "none"].

Give me 3 to 5 phases in order, from today until the final due date I typed.
For each phase:
- the result I can point to when it is done
- which rubric row it covers
- the date, using only dates I typed. If I did not give a date for that phase, write DATE FOR ME TO SET
- what I will do myself. Do not do it for me.

Out of scope: a draft of the paper, slide text I could submit, and any sentence that fills a rubric row.
Then stop. I will approve the order before you go on.

Move a phase if the order is wrong. Cut one you will not do. This is the approval. Do not say "looks good" if you have not read it. Ask for a plan before the work. Approve the plan before it continues.

If the final is a talk, the last phase can be practice time. The words of the talk are still yours. Use Practice for a presentation after you have a draft you wrote.

How do you ask for research questions, then read the sources?

Questions come before sources. A list of fake citations is the failure mode. You will open every source you keep.

I approve these phases:
[paste the list you kept]

For phase [the research phase only], give me 5 research questions a careful student would need to answer to meet the rubric.
Do not answer the questions.
Do not write a thesis for me.
For each question, say which rubric row it serves.

Then suggest up to 3 kinds of sources I should look for, such as a chapter in the assigned book, a news article, or a page on a site my teacher named.
Do not invent an author, a title, a year, a quote, or a link.
If you name a specific source, mark it CHECK THIS and tell me to open it before I cite it.
Then stop.

Open the sources yourself. If a link is broken, or the page does not say what the chat claimed, drop it. Write the citation from the page you opened, in the format your teacher asked for. The full habit is Research a topic with AI without trusting made-up facts.

When you have read one source, you can ask for a check of your notes. Paste your sentences, not a request for a summary you will turn in.

I read this source: [title and where I opened it].
My notes, in my words:
[paste]

Tell me which of my research questions these notes answer, and which question is still open.
Do not rewrite my notes into paragraphs I could paste into the project.
Do not add a fact that is not in my notes. If you are unsure, say UNSURE.

How do you write a disclosure and keep the draft yours?

The timeline is the end of this chat. The writing happens with the chat closed, or with a tutor prompt that refuses to draft.

If the policy says you must disclose help, write one sentence on the project in your own words. A fair disclosure is: "I used [tool] to turn the rubric into a timeline and to list research questions. I read the sources and wrote the project myself." A hidden chat is not a disclosure. If the policy is vague, ask the teacher before you start. "May I use an AI tutor to plan the steps and quiz me, if I write the project myself?" is a fair question.

I will write the project myself.

From the phases I approved, list only:
- what I do next, one action
- what I will show myself when that action is done
- the disclosure sentence I should consider, using this fact only: I used this chat to plan and to list questions, and I will write the work

Do not draft the project.
Do not write an introduction.
Do not fill the rubric.
Then stop.

Put the next action on a calendar. If you later want a reaction to a paragraph you wrote, that is a different guide, and only if your policy allows feedback. Start from Use AI for school the right way.

What mistakes should you avoid?

These are the misses that waste the result. Skip them before you send anything.

Common mistakes

• Starting without the rubric, then studying a project the teacher did not assign.
• Asking for "a strong thesis and a full outline in my voice" and pasting it in.
• Keeping a citation you did not open.
• Letting the chat write speaker notes and reading them as your talk.
• Skipping the disclosure when the syllabus asks for one.

What should you keep private?

Do not paste another student's project, a test, an answer key you were not given, or a photo of someone else's grade. School accounts sometimes allow the teacher or the district to see school-tool logs. A personal account is not a way around an honor code. The work itself shows who did it.

What should you check before you use it?

Answer each line below. If one is still a no, do not use the result yet.

Director check: look before you use it

• Is the rubric in the chat because you pasted it? If the requirements were guessed, delete the plan.
• Which list is this task on? Timeline and questions are green only if the policy allows AI at all. A draft you could turn in is red.
• Did you approve the phases before the questions? A timeline you did not read is not a plan.
• Can you open every source you might cite? If you cannot, it is not a source yet.
• Who writes the sentences that get turned in? You do. If the chat wrote them, they do not go in the project.
• Does the syllabus want a disclosure? If yes, the sentence is on the work. If you do not know, ask. Do not let the chat decide the policy.

What is one extra tip?

One phase at a time is enough for a week. Do not ask for the whole project in the next message. The Director pages for that stop are Ask for a plan before the work and Approve the plan before it continues. More class guides are on School.