Teaching Writing in an Age of Automation

Submitted by: Natalie Bellis
Abstract: As generative AI technologies interact with the everyday practices of secondary English teachers in Australia, how will they mediate what subject English is and could be? Evocatively described by McQuillan as “the steam hammer of limited imagination” (2022, p. 115), how might generative AI technologies interact with existing automated perspectives and processes, such as standardised assessment, that already mediate writing in classrooms? In contrast, how might the everyday creativity and “improvisatory modes” (Pink, 2023, p. 18) of English teachers open up possibilities for resistance (Robinson, 2023)?

This research project seeks to explore the ways in which this ‘new’ technology is mediating the teaching of writing in secondary English classrooms. In particular, the project investigates how the increasing ubiquity of synthetic text is shaping the practices and identities of secondary English teachers as teachers of writing. Bakhtinian perspectives on language (Bakhtin, 1981; 1986) are employed to speculate about the implications of GenAI for meaning-making practices in English classrooms in light of the monologic nature of texts produced by LLMs. Institutional ethnography (Smith, 1987; 1999) is utilised as a method of inquiry to make sense of how generative AI is textually mediating the practices of English teachers.

References:

Bakhtin, M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.

Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (V. McGee, Trans.; M. Holquist & C. Emerson, Eds.). University of Texas Press.

McQuillan, D. (2022). Resisting AI: An anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence. Bristol University Press.

Pink, S. (2023). Emerging technologies / Life at the edge of the future (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003182528

Robinson, B. (2023). Speculative propositions for digital writing under the new autonomous model of literacy. Postdigital Science and Education. 5(1), 117-135. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00358-5

Smith, D. (1987). The everyday world as problematic: A feminist sociology. Northeastern University Press.

Smith, D. (1999). Writing the social: Critique, theory, and investigations. University of Toronto Press.