Current generative ai policies around writing are very inconsistent. I've seen departments discourage the use of any assistive writing technology, including a Grammarly-style spell checker. Others have mandated that instructors incorporate ai lessons into their classrooms because they believe that using ai is the future and that it will help students write.
As a writer and writing teacher, I don't think either approach is entirely correct. On the one hand, we must do a much better job of protecting the sanctity of human writing and drawing a line in the sand, ensuring that all students participate in the cognitively beneficial and emotionally rewarding process of actually writing. On the other hand, ai writing is here to stay, and there are some tedious aspects of writing that ai can help with, as well as ways students can hone their writing skills to better use them in their future careers and lives. .
To find the right balance between these two approaches, I think the writing of instructions and tasks could use an update. Here are five steps writing teachers can take to improve writing instruction in the age of ai.
<h2 id="1-let-ai-handle-formatting-and-citations-3″>1. Let ai take care of formatting and citations
I spent much of my time as a student agonizing over whether my citations and endnotes conformed to the MLA stylebook or whatever stylebook my professor required. As an instructor, too much time is spent making sure students follow various style books required by different disciplines.
Citations and endnotes are something that robotic ai writers will do better and faster than we can, and I'm happy to hand over this job. Let's teach students how to use the technology available to better format their work in less time so they can focus on real writing.
The same could apply to finding sources in some cases. Sometimes it will be helpful to do your own research and go down your own rabbit holes; Other times, ai could help speed up this process.
We should also inform students about potentially more efficient approaches, such as Google Scholar's New ai Summaries research.
<h2 id="2-teach-how-to-use-ai-for-cover-letters-and-other-application-documents-3″>2. Teach how to use ai for cover letters and other application documents
I don't love focusing writing instruction on career opportunities because, in my opinion, it diminishes writing, which I've always considered far more important than just a career skill.
That said, many of the career-oriented lessons we once taught, such as writing resumes, professional emails, and cover letters, could now be better accomplished with the help of ai. These types of documents are often so limited by guidelines that they tend to be generic anyway, and tailoring each one specifically to a particular job, as is often best, can make the job search even more nerve-wracking.
A recent graduate told me how they used ai to write dozens of personalized cover letters a day and that's how they finally landed a prestigious research position. many great Companies are using ai to scan early applications. Regardless, I don't see any problem with helping our students level the playing field.
Of course, students should be taught to critically read their IA cover letters and application materials to ensure they are accurate, truthful, and not too generic. You don't want to send the same letter that dozens of other applicants sent because they also used ai.
3. Prioritize originality
ai writing tends to be boring, cliché-ridden and lifeless, save for the occasional, unintentionally entertaining hallucination.
To combat unwanted ai submissions in our classroom, we need to encourage writing that is the opposite of that. Let's stop deducting points from students who use the word “I” in their work and encourage them to share their perspectives in new and unique ways. Let's grade on originality and design tasks that require them to do things like perform new experiments, dig up historical documents, or interview people and get new quotes that can't be found on the Internet.
The more real and practical we make our writing tasks, the better they will be overall and the harder it will be for ai to duplicate them. For example, ai can write a decent article about Juan Soto and how he recently snubbed the Yankees by signing with the Mets, but he can't interview his school's history teacher, who used to play minor league baseball and fell in love with history. because I had nothing else to do but read during the long bus rides.
4. Writing instruction should include quick writing
Whether we like it or not, writing effective ai prompts will be an important skill in the future. Writing, English communications, and liberal arts departments in general should not cede this important modern-world skill to the IT department.
Instead, these groups should work with the technology department to develop collaborative assignments and understanding of ai so that students can use the skills they learn in writing class to get the most out of their use of ai.
Studying the ways ai responds to different cues can also be a good way to study language and its complexities. Yes, teaching students to get better at using ai could make them better at cheating on assignments you don't want them to use ai for. But I don't think we should let fear of misuse blind us to the potential benefits.
I also believe we need to push for more effective institutional responses to the prohibited use of ai in class, so that teachers can spend less time eliminating ai and more time teaching traditional writing, and even writing with ai.
5. Remind everyone of the cognitive and emotional impact of writing all the time
Sometimes those who write too much in favor of ai sound to me like someone who wonders why someone would walk or run to the store when they could drive there much faster. Sure, the car will get you there and save you the physical exertion, which can sometimes be painful, but doing so will deprive you of the health benefits of exercise and (pardon the cliché) the joys of travel.
Writing is the same, even in those rare cases where ai can do it as well as a human. We need to remind students, administrators, and ourselves that writing is not about going from a blank page to one full of words. It is about debating with ourselves and researching, thinking and building our knowledge about a topic while clarifying our thoughts.
It has been proven that writing helps us learn.but it does more than that. When we write, we create, and although it's not always easy, there is something very deep and satisfying about sharing our inner thoughts. In other words, writing is one of the great human pleasures and I am not prepared for machines to steal it from me or my students.
