Emperor Nero | Research Paper Preparation with Claude

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    My daughter has been assigned a research project on the Roman Emperor Nero.  Honestly, I don't know much of anything about Nero, but as she researches, and shares what she learns, I'm learning alongside of her.  

    Because my content knowledge is limited on this topic, I feel like I have little to offer in support.  I could coach her on how to take notes and organize her notecards, I could ask her probing questions about what she tells me, but at no point do I have background information about Nero that I can lean on to validate what she is telling me.  

    So, I decided I would try to leverage AI to become a study buddy in this project.  To be clear, I wanted to ensure that AI augmented and catalyzed her thinking, as opposed to doing the thinking for her.  In an effort of being transparent, I want to share my thoughts about this here.

    My daughter was concerned that what we were doing would constitute cheating-- and I'm glad that her concern was primarily with whether what I was suggesting was right/good/ethical.  Together we read through the district policy on AI usage, and I assured her that, with my oversight, we would only use AI to improve her studying, not to do her work for her.  I also told her that I intended to be eminently transparent with her teacher about what we had done.

Screen Grab of District Policy Regarding AI Use Taken April 18th, 2026

    First, I worked with Claude to create a project with instructions (i.e a master prompt) that steered the AI's interaction with my daughter to my liking.  My primary goal in constructing the master prompt was to ensure that AI would not do thinking for her, and would challenge her to develop her thinking on the topic.  

    Then, I collected my daughter's notecards which she prepared independently per her teacher's requirements and started a chat with Claude that explained what I (pretending to be my daughter) was doing:

I am researching the Emperor Nero in preparation for writing a 5 page paper on the topic of Nero's Effect on Rome and How It Affected Roman People.  I am taking notes on notecards, which I will provide to you in an image.  The notecards have letters in the top left hand corner which correspond to the source from which the note originated.  The numbers in the top right hand corner are sequential from when I took the note from the given source.  I need you to transcribe my notes from my notecards.  If my handwriting is unclear, ask me to fill in the notes for the given card.  Then I need you ask me questions that lead me to make connections and think deeply about the content I’m consuming.

The sources are as follows:

A. "Nero." Britannica School, Encyclopædia Britannica, 18 Feb. 2025. school.eb.com/levels/high/article/Nero/55320. Accessed 10 Apr. 2026.                   

B. Bologna, Francesca. “Who was Nero?” British Museum, 22 April 2021, https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-was-nero. Accessed 14 April 2026.

C. Ancient History Site. “Nero: The Roman Emperor and His Impact on Imperial Rome.” Ancient History Sites, https://www.ancient-history-sites.com/roman/emperors/nero/. Accessed 15 4 2026.

D. The Roman Empire: in the First Century. The Roman Empire. Emperors. Nero.” PBS, https://www.pbs.org/empires/romans/empire/nero.html. Accessed 16 April 2026.

E. Bileta, Vedran, et al. “The Great Fire of Rome: Was Emperor Nero Really Behind It?” TheCollector, 10 February 2023, https://www.thecollector.com/great-fire-of-rome/. Accessed 17 April 2026.

F. “How Nero's legendary golden palace bankrupted the roman empire.” History Skills, https://www.historyskills.com/classroom/ancient-history/domus-aurea/. Accessed 17 April 2026.

G. Bileta, Vedran. "How Did Emperor Nero treat Christians During His Reign?" TheCollector.com, February 9, 2024, https://www.thecollector.com/how-did-emperor-nero-treat-christians-during-his-reign/

    Then I photographed her notecards, and uploaded them to Claude.

    Once this was done, I sat with my daughter and looked at Claude's output and asked her the questions it provided.  As she verbally answered, I transcribed her answers in conversation.  Then, I handed it off to her to write responses to Claude.

    A log of the chat can be observed here.

    Some observations:

• Claude comes across as rigorous, and I think it was really effective at pushing her to think about whether she had made assumptions, or brought in information that her notecards did not support.
• She got flustered to tears at one point as she assumed that Claude should know that she wouldn't recreate an image found in a source.  She felt overwhelmed by feelings that she would never be good enough, or never have enough done, to satisfy Claude (or by extension, maybe me?).
• I held her, and had to talk to her about the reaction she was having.  I explained that Claude will never back down, get flustered or tell her that she's done.  Claude will never pivot and say "You've done enough today, go grab an ice cream, I'm proud of you."  Instead, she has to recognize that she is the boss of Claude, and that it will be tireless in its insistence that she be better, go deeper, try harder and improve more.  

    As this is my first foray into a controlled use of AI to support my children's education, I am very glad that I was there and worked with her through it.  The way that she got stirred up by the intellectually adamant attitude that Claude conveyed needed a father (or mother) to help frame the emotional reaction. 

    Just from this study session, it makes me really consider how emotionally entangled our children can get with chat bots that appear to act like humans.  I can't stress enough how glad I am to have been there to see it.  Yet, I'm mixed with reticence because I know that she will eventually (maybe she already has) be interacting with AI in private when I won't be there to hold her if things go off the rails.

    I would really like to know how other families are thinking about whether, and how, to deliberately integrate AI into their children's education regimen.