Literary (Story) Elements

Today I started teaching literary (story) elements.  It was an introduction although most seventh graders know the terms (character, POV, theme, setting, conflicts, plot...), they can't necessarily pull them from the stories or understand how they connect.  

Before school, I decided to see what Grammarly would tell me about major characters. I asked who the major characters in Thank You Ma'am were and was surprised by the answer. 

The real question on my mind became, "Why do we teach literary elements?" Does it help with comprehension or understanding of the text?  Is it useful for anything other than standardized tests? The end of this unit is to write about how three elements interact in the story.  I usually lead kids toward using internal conflict, external conflict and theme.  I feel as though this is covered in the Grammarly answer.  Students would still need to follow the format of writing, but they would have the answers without even reading the story. 

I will see if students are savvy enough to use Grammarly on their literary (story) elements assignments when we start reading. As we continue with these lessons, I will have to give this some thought.  Why am I teaching literary elements?  How can I help students use AI and still think about the elements of the story?