AI in Writing Instruction
A focused introduction to teaching writing in an AI-mediated environment, built around a distinction that changes how students and instructors understand AI's role in the composing process.
Writing WITH AI, Not FOR AI
The most consequential question for writing instructors today is not whether students use AI, but how they use it. The WITH/FOR distinction (Cole) names a difference that is pedagogically and rhetorically significant: it is the difference between AI as a tool that extends your thinking and AI as a replacement for it.
This framework applies equally to instructors designing assignments and to students completing them. A course that asks students to use AI thoughtfully must also be able to articulate what "thoughtfully" means.
AI as Thinking Partner
- Brainstorm ideas and then select, reject, or revise them based on your own judgment
- Use AI to generate an outline, then substantially restructure or depart from it
- Ask AI to challenge your argument; use the pushback to strengthen your position
- Prompt AI for counterarguments, then decide which deserve incorporation
- Generate multiple framings of a claim; choose one and articulate why
- Use AI feedback on a draft as one reader among several
AI as Producer
- Submit AI-generated text with minimal engagement or revision
- Use AI to complete tasks rather than to think through them
- Accept AI phrasing, structure, or framing without interrogating it
- Prompt AI to write the assignment and then copy-edit the result
- Treat AI output as a draft that needs polishing rather than a starting point that needs thinking
- Use AI to avoid the difficulty of writing, rather than to navigate it
The WITH/FOR distinction is not a policy instrument — it does not tell you what to permit or prohibit in your courses. It is an analytical tool for helping students understand what kind of engagement they are actually having with a task, and for helping instructors design assignments where the WITH engagement is the point.
Writing is thinking. A course designed around writing pedagogy principles understands that the process of drafting, revising, and reconsidering is where learning happens — not in the submission of a final product. AI used FOR writing short-circuits that process. AI used WITH writing, when designed deliberately, can extend and challenge it. The pedagogical question is always: where is the cognitive work happening, and who is doing it?
The Digital Communication Certificate as Deep Dive
This elective introduces the WITH/FOR framework and its immediate applications to writing courses. It does not attempt to be a comprehensive treatment of AI in educational contexts — that work belongs to the Digital Communication Instruction Certificate.
DC Module 3: Teaching with Digital Tools
DC Module 3 is the program's full treatment of AI in instructional contexts. If you plan to teach AI use extensively, build AI literacy assignments, or lead faculty development around AI, that module is the appropriate venue.
- AI literacy as a transferable competency across disciplines
- Prompt engineering as a rhetorical and pedagogical practice
- Designing assignments that make AI use visible and assessable
- Ethical frameworks for AI in academic writing contexts
- Institutional policy development and course-level policy writing
- AI and the assessment of student writing: what changes and what doesn't
AI, Language, and Access
The WITH/FOR framework has particular stakes for students whose linguistic backgrounds differ from the dominant academic register. AI creates a genuine tension here that instructors should be prepared to articulate rather than paper over.
AI flattens linguistic diversity. Large language models are trained primarily on text in dominant registers of standard academic English. When students — including multilingual writers — use AI to "fix" their prose, they often receive output that erases the distinctive rhetorical moves and linguistic features of their writing. The result is grammatically conventional but rhetorically impoverished. AI can make writing sound like a genre rather than a person.
AI assists students navigating language barriers. For students writing in an additional language, AI tools for grammar checking, clarification, and translation represent a genuine accommodation. The same tool that flattens one writer's voice helps another writer access academic genres they are still acquiring. These are not contradictory facts — they are both true, and a nuanced AI policy acknowledges both.
Instructors working with multilingual students should read the WITH/FOR framework alongside Elective 4: Inclusive Practices for Multilingual Writers, which addresses these questions at greater depth, including the code-meshing vs. code-switching debate and the minimal marking principle.
WITH vs. FOR: Side-by-Side Task Exploration
Complete the same writing task twice using the same AI tool — once in a WITH mode and once in a FOR mode — then analyze the difference in your own cognitive engagement.
Prompt AI to complete the task. Review the output, make light edits for grammar and flow, and treat the result as your response. Do not invest substantially in the ideas — accept them.
Use AI as a thinking partner. Brainstorm with it, challenge it, have it argue against your position, generate an outline and then substantially depart from it. Write your own response, informed by but not dependent on AI output.
Write a Course AI Policy and Redesign One Assignment
A course AI policy is a pedagogical statement, not a rulebook. It tells students what you believe about writing, learning, and AI — and it creates the context within which your assignments make sense. A policy that merely permits or prohibits is a missed opportunity.
A strong course AI policy names the WITH/FOR distinction explicitly or implicitly, connects AI use to the course's learning goals, addresses what counts as academic integrity in this specific context, and anticipates the equity questions that a blanket policy ignores. It is addressed to students as intellectual agents, not as compliance subjects.
A statement to appear in your course syllabus
Write a policy for a specific course you teach or will teach. It should be 150–250 words: substantive enough to communicate your pedagogical values, brief enough to be read.
Identify an existing assignment and redesign it for WITH engagement
Choose an assignment from the same course. Consider how a student would use AI in a FOR mode to complete it, and then redesign it so that WITH engagement becomes both possible and legible.
Evaluate an AI-Generated Response Scenario
Read the scenario below and respond to the questions. This activity does not have a required length — write until you have said what you think.
The Revised Draft
A first-year composition student submits a 1,200-word argumentative essay. You notice the prose is unusually polished for this student's previous work — confident transitions, varied sentence rhythm, strong claim structure. You run the text through an AI detection tool and receive a result of 78% "likely AI-generated." The student, when asked, says: "I used ChatGPT to help me brainstorm and organize my ideas, and then I rewrote everything in my own words. I thought that was okay — you didn't say we couldn't."
The program maintains a unified AI literacy resource for instructors working through these questions across writing, oral, and digital communication contexts. It addresses assignment design, policy language, equity implications, and the evolving landscape of AI tools in academic settings.
Build Your AI in Writing Artifact
Compile the key deliverables from this elective into a reviewable artifact: your WITH/FOR analysis, your course AI policy, and your redesigned assignment. This artifact feeds into your Written Communication Instruction Certificate completion portfolio.
When you have completed this elective, submit your responses to the C²TC record. Submission captures all saved fields.