Academic Writing and the Rhetoric of Request

By William Ashley Johnson

This first post in the Power of the Prompt series explores how the habits of mind we’ve long taught in composition—audience awareness, purpose, context—reappear in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) as the foundations of effective prompt writing. Through classroom analogies and research-backed insights, it shows that the same rhetorical instincts guiding our essay and discussion prompts also shape our interactions with large language models. Rather than a new literacy, the “rhetoric of request” reminds us that teachers have always been in the business of writing prompts that make thinking possible.

The first time I asked an AI to “write a short essay about symbolism,” it produced five paragraphs of what could only be described as a mash-up of literary leftovers. Fitzgerald, Frost, and Frankenstein all showed up to the same party, each trying to out-toast the others. When I narrowed the request— “Explain how water imagery functions as a symbol in The Great Gatsby using two direct examples”—the response suddenly knew what it was talking about. Which, of course, said less about AI and more about me finally learning how to make the right kind of request.

That’s when it hit me: writing teachers have been living in this world forever. We just call them discussion questions, essay prompts, or assignment instructions. We spend entire afternoons debating verbs—should we say analyze, examine, or unpack? We’re professional prompt writers. We design little rhetorical universes where clarity, tone, and purpose collide. So, when I hear colleagues wondering how to integrate generative AI into their teaching, I think of what Buele and Llerena-Aguirre (2025) found: many instructors feel technical insecurity, ethical tension, and even fears of professional displacement. That reaction makes sense—AI has shifted the language of teaching itself. But when we talk about “prompt engineering,” we’re really talking about something we already know: how to shape questions that invite the right kind of thinking. Every time you craft a discussion board question that gets students to think instead of regurgitate, you’re modeling the same rhetorical instincts that drive effective AI interactions. The real challenge isn’t teaching machines how to write; it’s teaching humans how to ask better. And that, friends, is our home turf.

When we draft a prompt, we’re already balancing the same variables AI responds to: context, tone, audience, and constraints. We rephrase, add examples, or build in scaffolds to steer the kind of response we hope to get. Those same small decisions—naming the audience, clarifying the purpose, tightening the task—are exactly what make AI prompts work. The classroom has been our laboratory for prompt testing all along.

Recent research echoes that connection. Lee and Palmer (2025) describe prompt design as an emerging “21st-century literacy” that requires balancing precision with openness to foster critical thinking in learners. Their review of higher-education curricula suggests that writing effective AI prompts depends on the same rhetorical awareness—audience, purpose, and context—that underpins composition pedagogy. The more intentional the request, the smarter the reply. It’s true of students, colleagues, and yes, even large language models.

Our own course spaces prove the point. The prompts that flop are the vague ones— “Discuss your thoughts on the reading.” The prompts that sing give students a frame and a reason to use it: clear requests that make thinking visible. With just enough direction, thinking starts to move—focused, flexible, alive.

AI works the same way. “Summarize this article” yields a dutiful book report. “Summarize this article for nursing students new to research writing” becomes something else entirely—a teaching act. That kind of specificity builds agency and clarity—the same conditions Song and Song (2023) found to be most motivating for writers using AI-supported tools. Their study showed that students who framed tasks with more context produced writing that was clearer, more confident, and more aligned with purpose.

I’ve seen that play out in real time. In a live demo, I asked AI to “revise this paragraph for clarity.” A student interrupted: “You didn’t tell it who it’s for.” When I added “for first-year college readers,” the output transformed. So did the room. They’d just watched audience awareness make the machine smarter.

Maybe that’s the real takeaway. We’re not standing at the edge of a brave new literacy—we’re looking into a clearer mirror, one that reflects the same rhetorical habits we’ve always taught. Whether the audience is a peer, a professor, or a predictive model, the reflection doesn’t change; it just shows our craft from a new angle—where every request we make, human or otherwise, still depends on the same attention to purpose and tone.

So, before we rush to reinvent how to “teach AI,” maybe we pause and recognize the skill set we already own—decades of helping writers read situations, frame requests, and choose language that moves meaning forward. We are prompt writers by trade. Always have been. The only real shift is that now, everyone else finally sees how powerful a well-crafted request can be.

References

Buele, J., & Llerena-Aguirre, L. (2025). Transformations in academic work and faculty perceptions of artificial intelligence in higher education. Frontiers in Education, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1603763

Lee, K., & Palmer, M. (2025). Prompt engineering in higher education: A systematic review to help inform curricula. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 22(1), 50. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-025-00503-7

Song, C., & Song, Y. (2023). Enhancing academic writing skills and motivation: Assessing the efficacy of ChatGPT in AI-assisted language learning for EFL students. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1260843. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1260843

William Ashley Johnson teaches English composition and rhetoric at Purdue Global, where his work explores the intersections of user experience (UX), writing pedagogy, and generative AI in online learning environments. Power of the Prompt is a three-part exploration of how writing with artificial intelligence intersects with the genres we already know best: academic, professional, and personal. Each article looks at what happens when the everyday act of asking, through essays, emails, or self-expression, meets the new reality of writing with AI. Together, the series argues that the art of the prompt isn’t new at all—it’s the same rhetorical awareness composition teachers have been cultivating for decades, now rendered visible in the age of automation.