Educators, academicians, and the like are adopting defensive postures and fortifying their positions and arguments as to why students must continue to produce their own written work with minimal, if any, assistance from generative AI. Nary a week passes without another tip, strategy, or app designed to detect and deter students’ use of generative AI to produce essays, reports, and other written assignments; more often than not, those solutionsthemselves relying heavily on generative AI. A variety of posts warn of the dangers of ceding the process of writing to AI. Exasperated and all too human authors pen Impassioned screeds that equate writing with thinking. As they see it, if alive today, Pascal no doubt would have written: Scribo ergo cogito ergo sum; or in his native French, J’écris donc je pense donc je suis; that is,
I write, therefore I think, therefore I am.
Despite their valiant efforts, we know ultimately how this story ends. The process of writing and our expectations for the students who produce it will look very different 3, 5, or 10 years from now than they do today. That’s just the way life and education work in the first half of the 21st century. Time marches on. Staunch defenders of the status quo and 5-step writing process while be overrun like those at the Alamo. Others will suggest compromises that only delay the inevitable. And yes, there will be small bands of Luddites who cling to their pencils, legal pads, and cursive writing. In any event, based on past experience, it’s unlikely that historians and future educators will regard this as our finest hour – whatever medium they use to document it.
However, before either simply rolling over and accepting the inevitable or devoting way too many words and other precious resources to a fight that cannot be won, I think (and therefore I write?) that we should ask ourselves the question, Why writing? Is writing the right hill to die on?
The Last Hurrah
Although generative AI is the shiny new toy du jour, it is also the last in a long line of technological breakthroughs that have chipped away at time-tested methods of delivering instruction in various content areas and changed the way that students interact with content.
Since the scientific calculator replaced the slide rule in the 1970s, our expectations for student performance in mathematics and related areas have been constantly changing. Logarithm tables and methods for calculating square roots were the first to go. Graphing curves to find maxima and minima by hand eventually gave way to the graphing calculator. In statistics, we long ago ceded control to software packages to the point that too many articles report results of statistical analyses that authors barely understand. For the most part, we are comfortable with all of that.
True, there were some who held out against the use of calculators for a while. And the Common Core State Standards tried valiantly to insert conceptual understanding into the mix of mathematics instruction at the elementary level, but sadly, there were too few teachers who understood the concept.
Instruction in history and the social sciences which had been centered on names and dates quickly succumbed to the internet, even before it was overwhelmed by questions regarding whose history should be taught.
Instruction in the natural sciences, long largely a combination of mathematics and social science instruction followed those content areas. Science’s unique contribution, the hands-on lab, has learned how to integrate simulations into its structured reality.
And reading. Ah, reading. It’s ironic, and a bit sad, that when seemingly we have finally figured out how to teach reading, the calls to redefine literacy to include other modes of communication have never been stronger.
Any discussion of writing inevitably leads us to reading. For obvious reasons, reading and writing are inextricably linked in our minds. As it turns out, however, much like love and marriage, it is possible to have one without the other. For so much of what is written, reading is only an intermediary step via which an agent receives information which is then communicated to a broader audience, perhaps even a global audience, using a variety of formats.
So, I ask again, …
Why Writing?
The first factor to consider is that the group making the strongest push to preserve writing is a highly skewed and biased sample. Academicians, education researchers, consultants, etc. are members of an elite minority who actually depend on the written word to make their living and as their lifeblood. It’s only natural that this group of 1-percenters cannot imagine a world without writing as we know it today.
We must acknowledge, however, that people who write regularly and know when to insert a comma or where to place the punctuation mark within a quotation are, in fact, a rather miniscule portion of the population.
We must also ask ourselves whether writing is as important as we think it is. We tend to think of writing as this indispensable life skill, but the reality is that the vast, vast majority of people can go months, years, or decades without producing anything longer than a rough paragraph.
The typical person manages to think, make decisions, and express their ideas on a daily basis, but rarely writes anything down. As difficult as it might be to wrap our heads around, people might use mathematics more than writing.
I’m reminded of the joke that has stood the test of time, “Illiterate: Call 1-800…”. In my day, instead of a 1-800 number (or QR code), the illiterate “reader” was directed to write for a free brochure from the US Government Printing Office in Pueblo, Colorado. Ah, Pueblo, the source of so much useful information through the 1970s, and all for the cost of an SASE. Iykyk. Today, pretty much all of that information and more can be accessed in video format on YouTube or TikTok.
And if we’re being honest, I’ll bet that there will be pretty widespread agreement that much of what is written and disseminated these days falls well short of being worthy of being called writing.
And if we reach the level of honesty that only comes late at night after two or three drinks at a conference reception, we might even acknowledge that generative AI platforms are likely the only readers of many of the works published in our fields.
Why are we holding an imaginary line on writing?
Theseus’ Paradox – Is It Still Writing?
In a 2022 post, I applied to testing, the ancient philosophical question of whether an object that has all of its components replaced (or altered in some way) remains the same object. When is an item no longer the same item? When is a test no longer the same test? The same question applies to writing? We must ask and honestly answer the question, when is writing no longer writing?
Even more importantly, we must ask and honestly answer the question, what knowledge and skills are we trying to promote and reinforce via writing? Are they still relevant? Can they be conveyed as, if not more effectively, via other means.
The use of generative AI to produce written pieces is a giant leap, but it’s not the first change to the process of student writing that has come down the pike.
We know that the process of producing a piece of writing on a computer is different than writing by hand with pencil and legal pad. By extension, one might conclude that the thought processes invoked and involved are different as well. (And no, I’m not referring to the mind-numbing cursive writing debate.)
For me, trying to write collaboratively on Google Docs is yet another distinct skill set.
We have come to accept certain tools (e.g., spell check, grammar check, autocorrect) and formatting supports as routine parts of the writing process.
We are comfortable with the use of online tools to identify primary and secondary source materials, references, etc.
We are even coming around on the idea of accepting technology-assisted dictation as writing. As noted in my book (p. 130), one of the more contentious discussions that took place during the NECAP program was whether oral dictation was an appropriate accommodation for the Writing test, with some holding the line that writing was a different, distinct skill set than oral storytelling. The product can certainly be different.
Just last week, while listening to a story being told on the radio, I said to my wife, that text was written to be read not recited. Conversely, when reading Garrison Keillor I feel as though I am listening to him tell me a story. To wrap things up, recently I recommended a book from my summer reading list to an old NECAP buddy who was a solidly in the “dictation isn’t writing” camp. He replied that he and his wife had already listened to the audiobook.
What is writing?
Embrace the Absurd 