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"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 GPT-3, as recently covered in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed? How should teachers participate in shaping policies around these technologies in our departments, institutions, and society?

As teachers who assign writing, we need to reckon with the possibility that our students may use writing generators to produce essays or parts of essays. These tools do not produce writing copied from human sources; the AI origin appears to be not reliably detectable either by human readers or by software. 

To shape our individual and institutional responses to this new technology, writing teachers and scholars need more information about the kinds and quality of AI-generated text we can expect in response to common types of essay prompts. For example, we may want to design prompts that AI text generators are unskilled at performing, or we may want to find ways to use these generators pedagogically. Either way, as faculty responsible for teaching writing as impactful, ethical intellectual activity, we need to know what AI generators are capable of. And we need to understand the forms of bias and error that emerge in AI-generated writing."

• This is an open and evolving list put together by a writing teacher who is not an expert in the field, with suggestions from a few other more knowledgeable folks. I hope it can eventually be replaced by a curated list issued by a larger group of writing teachers affiliated with one or more of our professional organizations. Such a group will no doubt be established soon and tasked with providing guidance on AI text generators.

• Please note that inclusion in this list does not indicate endorsement. Some of these resources include various forms of AI hype or claims that have not been verified. They are provided to give a general sense of the landscape of discourse around the topic.

Many of the links here are also included in the AI Text Generators document; however, my list is multi-disciplinary and includes articles for those involved in art, theater, musical composing, and legal issues, in addition to teaching. 

If you have any articles you'd like me to add to the list, please send them to Julie.

Lolita Paff, Ph.D. created this reference and resource document when she presented at the 2023 Magna STEM Educators Conference.

During this presentation, Drs. McKee and Porter discussed their research into AI composing technologies as well as their own experience in incorporating AI into their classes as part of their course polices and practices.

During the activities portions of the workshop, Drs. McKee and Porter asked participants to have AI respond to one of their essay assignment prompts and evaluate the way the AI responded. Other activities included having AI evaluate assignment prompts and thinking about ways to adapt our academic integrity policies for a world in which anything written by an AI is legally the student's writing.