As someone who teaches academic writing and reading to PhD students at assorted universities here in London, this was an invaluable post. I really hope they offer some workshops at some point to non-BU scholars and teachers interested in this area.
Yes, I think we all could use more workshops and resources! The pilot at BU was great, because we had a cohort and could brainstorm and learn from each other and from our undergraduate affiliates. But it still sometimes feel like we're all trying to figure this out on our own!
Yes. And like you, I imagine, I get questions about AI constantly from students. I try to be open with them that I'm actively grappling with it, rather than to reassure them that I've got a definitive answer. I don't!
Thanks so much for this great work. I think we might differ a bit in terms of what constitutes “unreasonable barriers” as some of what is AI-assisted here is what I call upon from Nicole Wallack’s “Radical Revision” in my writing instruction, and I’m not sure I’m ready to relegate that over to AI without adequately auditing what skills are replaced, altered, or erased. But you’ve given me a lot to think about and I appreciate the sample prompts!
I'll have to check out "Radical Revision" - I'm intrigued. I agree that finding the right balance between scaffolding and relegating key skills to AI is tricky!
So sorry! Human error. :-). It is Carley Moore, “Radical Revision: Toward Demystifying the Labor of Writing” in Writing-Based Teaching: Essential Practices and Enduring Questions (eds. Teresa Vilardi and Mary Chang, SUNY Press, 2009), 119-139. Nicole Wallack has a different (also great) essay in that same collection about focused freewriting :-)
Great post. I’ve written quite a bit about using AI in the research process. I’m curious if you utilized any of the Deep Research models (I imagine you used the Deep Research component of Perplexity?) like Gemini or OpenAI. Those models do an incredibly deep dive into a topic and, with the right query, can produce a lot of sourced information. I do believe this is the future of research, at a minimum to supplement other methods, so will be something students should get familiar with. Thanks for sharing!
I mentioned these models, but we found that even the more general models were sufficient for brainstorming topics and coming up with questions or points of disagreement (at least, in an introductory class like ours). However, as these models become better and better, I think we will all have to familiarize ourselves with them!
As someone who teaches academic writing and reading to PhD students at assorted universities here in London, this was an invaluable post. I really hope they offer some workshops at some point to non-BU scholars and teachers interested in this area.
Yes, I think we all could use more workshops and resources! The pilot at BU was great, because we had a cohort and could brainstorm and learn from each other and from our undergraduate affiliates. But it still sometimes feel like we're all trying to figure this out on our own!
Yes. And like you, I imagine, I get questions about AI constantly from students. I try to be open with them that I'm actively grappling with it, rather than to reassure them that I've got a definitive answer. I don't!
Love this! I am borrowing these ideas to use in my writing courses in the fall.
Thanks so much for this great work. I think we might differ a bit in terms of what constitutes “unreasonable barriers” as some of what is AI-assisted here is what I call upon from Nicole Wallack’s “Radical Revision” in my writing instruction, and I’m not sure I’m ready to relegate that over to AI without adequately auditing what skills are replaced, altered, or erased. But you’ve given me a lot to think about and I appreciate the sample prompts!
I'll have to check out "Radical Revision" - I'm intrigued. I agree that finding the right balance between scaffolding and relegating key skills to AI is tricky!
So sorry! Human error. :-). It is Carley Moore, “Radical Revision: Toward Demystifying the Labor of Writing” in Writing-Based Teaching: Essential Practices and Enduring Questions (eds. Teresa Vilardi and Mary Chang, SUNY Press, 2009), 119-139. Nicole Wallack has a different (also great) essay in that same collection about focused freewriting :-)
Thank you!
Great post. I’ve written quite a bit about using AI in the research process. I’m curious if you utilized any of the Deep Research models (I imagine you used the Deep Research component of Perplexity?) like Gemini or OpenAI. Those models do an incredibly deep dive into a topic and, with the right query, can produce a lot of sourced information. I do believe this is the future of research, at a minimum to supplement other methods, so will be something students should get familiar with. Thanks for sharing!
I mentioned these models, but we found that even the more general models were sufficient for brainstorming topics and coming up with questions or points of disagreement (at least, in an introductory class like ours). However, as these models become better and better, I think we will all have to familiarize ourselves with them!