By Shelly Gussis

This blog examines how first-year writing instructors are adjusting to generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom. While early reactions focused on issues of plagiarism and the potential decline of writing instruction, many schools are now moving toward intentional integration. Rather than ending writing instruction, AI is transforming it.

In the last year, I have attended numerous conferences and seminars where researchers and instructors have presented their ideas, experience, and uses of AI in the classroom. Additionally, I have been pursuing research on how instructors and students are using AI in writing classes, and the conclusion is that the writing classroom is alive and well. 

When generative AI tools like ChatGPT became widely available in late 2022, first-year composition instructors were among the first to confront their implications. Initial reactions often centered on alarm: concerns about plagiarism, the “death” of the college essay, and the collapse of traditional assessment. Three years later, the reality in many writing programs looks very different. Rather than abandoning writing instruction, composition instructors and programs are redefining its goals and methods.

From Bans to Intentional Integration

In first-year writing courses, tools like ChatGPT are now commonly used for brainstorming topics, generating sample paragraphs, modeling counterarguments, or producing conventional academic prose for critique (Young, 2023). Grammarly and similar platforms are framed as revision aids rather than writing substitutes, helping students identify recurring issues in grammar and clarity.

AI is rarely treated as a shortcut. Assignments often require students to analyze, revise, or substantially transform AI-generated text. According to Cummings et al. (2024), the strongest learning outcomes occur when AI output is paired with human judgment, rhetorical awareness, and revision rather than used independently.

Teaching Ethical and Critical AI Literacy

Alongside integration, instructors are explicitly teaching ethical and critical uses of AI. Many composition courses now include discussions of how generative AI functions, including its reliance on probability rather than understanding, and its tendency to reproduce bias and convention (Frank & Johnson, 2024).

In addition, students are frequently required to disclose AI use in reflections or process statements. This emphasizes transparency and teaches AI as a tool to be acknowledged rather than hidden. Moreover, institutions have made it clearer that submitting AI-generated text without attribution constitutes misrepresentation or a breach of academic integrity policies (University of Texas at Austin Center for Teaching and Learning, 2023).

In some classrooms, AI itself has also become a rhetorical object of study. Students produce an AI text on a topic and evaluate the text, examining tone, credibility, evidence, and omissions. This makes AI a tool for teaching evaluation, credibility, and rhetorical judgment.

Rethinking Learning Sequences

For decades, Bloom’s Taxonomy has dominated how instructors and instructional designers view learning. However, generative AI has generated new conversations about this learning hierarchy. Because tools like ChatGPT and Gemini can rapidly write texts that resemble analysis or creation, they complicate ideas about higher-order thinking necessarily following mastery of lower-order skills like remembering, understanding, and applying.  According to Cope et al. (2021), scholars that argue AI systems can simulate advanced cognitive performance without possessing understanding, which forces educators to reconsider how learning is sequenced and assessed.

Because of this, some writing instructors are reorienting the learning process itself. They treat text production not as the endpoint of learning, but the beginning. They use AI-generated drafts and move backward into evaluation, analysis, and revision. Students examine AI output for accuracy, rhetorical effectiveness, bias, and coherence. In this model, learning does not occur through text generation, but through critical examination and improvement. The result is a pedagogy where the core outcome of writing instruction is human decision-making and reflective thinking. 

Academic Integrity Without Surveillance

Concerns about academic integrity persist, but many instructors and institutions are moving away from heavy reliance on AI-detection software, which has proven unreliable. Cummings et al. (2024) point out that, as a result, faculty are redesigning assignments to emphasize process: scaffolded drafts, in-class writing, reflections, and personalized prompts that resist generic AI responses.

This approach makes integrity a pedagogical challenge rather than a policing problem. When students are assessed on how they think, revise, and reflect, AI shortcuts lose much of their appeal.

Writing Isn’t Ending—It’s Clarifying

When a newspaper reported Mark Twain was dying, Twain replied in a letter of rebuttal, “The report of my death was an exaggeration” (1897, p. 1). When generative AI first came out, panicked voices decried the death of first-year composition, but in time, AI has clarified the writing classroom’s purpose. Writing courses are no longer primarily about producing error-free text. They seem to be heading toward cultivating judgment, ethics, voice, and critical awareness in a world where text is easily generated. The writing classroom, while transforming, is alive and well (for now).

References

Cope, B., Kalantzis, M., & Searsmith, D. (2021). Artificial intelligence for education: Knowledge and its assessment in AI-enabled learning ecologies. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(12), 1229–1245. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1728732

Cummings, R. E., Monroe, S. M., & Watkins, M. (2024, March). Generative AI in first-year writing: An early analysis of affordances, limitations, and a pedagogical framework for the future. Computers and Composition, 71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2024.102827 

Frank, D., & Johnson, J. (2024). Working alongside—not against—AI writing tools in the composition classroom: A dialectical retrospective. In Teaching and generative AI: Pedagogical possibilities and productive tensions (pp. 275–285). Utah State University. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/teachingai/16/

Twain, M. (1897, June 2). Mark Twain amused by Frank Marshall White [rebuttal letter]. New York Journal, p. 1, c. 3. (Library of Congress)

University of Texas at Austin Center for Teaching and Learning. (2023). ChatGPT and generative AI tools: Sample syllabus policy statements on AI tools. https://ctl.utexas.edu/chatgpt-and-generative-ai-tools-sample-syllabus-policy-statements

Young, J. (2023, May 11). Why I’m excited about ChatGPT: Here are 10 ways it will be a boon to first-year writing instruction. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/05/11/10-ways-chatgpt-will-be-boon-first-year-writing-opinion

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About the Author

Shelly Gussis is an instructor at Purdue University Global and has been teaching college composition and writing for over 25 years.