AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for Inquiry
Introduction
What do teachers who assign writing need to know about AI text generators? How should we change our pedagogical practices, given the recent advances in AI Large Language Models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT? How should teachers participate in shaping policies around these technologies in our departments, institutions, and society?
To shape our individual and institutional responses to this new technology, writing teachers and scholars need more information about the workings, the quality, and the ethics of AI text generation. We may be concerned about possible learning loss and academic integrity violations due to unacknowledged use of AI in writing. We may want to help guide our students to think critically about this technology or to use it effectively. Or we may want to find ways to use these generators in our pedagogy. As faculty responsible for teaching writing as impactful, ethical intellectual activity, we need spaces to build our own understanding of AI text and discuss how to respond.
Shared Resources
- Resources on language models, learning, and teaching
- Questions for writing teachers to consider
- Strategies for mitigating harm associated with language models and writing
Opportunities to Engage and Participate
- Comment in the margins and read others’ comments on articles on AI text in education with Hypothesis. Tag your comments ChatGPTedu and AItextedu.
- Suggest additional resources, questions, or strategies for teaching policies and practices.
- Add to the list of strategies to mitigate harm involved with AI-generated writing.
The resources collected here serve as catalysts for inquiry, discussion and collaborative research as we respond to this major change in the kind of writing assistance available to our students.
Suggested Citation
Mills, Anna (Curator). AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points For Inquiry. 2022. Last Updated November 18, 2023.
Authorship and Credits
Anna Mills teaches writing at Cañada College and previously taught at City College of San Francisco for 17 years. Her collection “AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for Inquiry” is featured in the Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse. She serves on the MLA/CCCC task force on writing and AI, and as a consultant for OpenAI, she tested GPT-4 before its release. She has also written an Open Educational Resource (OER) textbook, How Arguments Work: A Guide to Writing and Analyzing Texts in College, which has been used at over 65 colleges. Anna's writing on AI has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. Find more on her at annarmills.com.
Anna Mills (millsanna@smccd.edu) teaches English at Cañada College.
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