Writing with Purpose in the Age of AI

Heather Bastian

Should I allow students to use AI or encourage it? Should I limit it or ban it? Or should I simply require students to disclose its use?

As an expert in rhetoric and composition with a background in teaching writing, I have spent over two decades helping faculty think critically about writing in their courses. Now, as the Director of the Charlotte Core and CxC, faculty increasingly come to me with questions like these. Before we can answer these questions, we must ask a more fundamental one:

Why do we ask students to write in the first place?

Writing is more than just producing content. It’s also far more interesting than simply stringing words together like code to “increase efficiency and productivity.” Writing is a deeply human process of discovery, critical thinking, engagement, and expression. Efficiency and productivity are not the point. Our humanity is. Our reasons for writing beyond mere commodity consumption and production matter. The more intentional we are about the purpose of writing, the more confident we can be in our decisions to integrate writing and AI into our classrooms or not.

Writing with Purpose

In March 2024, I adapted the CxC webinar “Why We Write and What this Means for Generative AI Use” for faculty teaching Theme courses in the Charlotte Core General Education curriculum. These often large, lecture-based courses frequently raise concerns about student engagement and AI use. The “Theme Faculty Discussion: AI and Writing” encouraged faculty to move beyond binary thinking about AI and reconsider the fundamental purposes of writing in their courses.

The discussion centered on an ethical framework for AI use in education that I built from existing theories of writing and rhetoric and composition scholarship. We focused on two of the five theories presented in the framework: Writing to Learn and Writing to Engage.

“ …the central issue isn’t whether to allow AI in student writing. It’s about why we ask students to write and how AI can either support or undermine these purposes and, by extension, our humanity.”

Writing to Engage

Writing-to-engage pushes students to move beyond basic understanding and engage critically with course content. Assignments like applying theoretical frameworks to case studies or comparing perspectives promote higher-order thinking skills such as analysis and critique.

In discussing AI’s potential role, faculty raised concerns. While AI can quickly generate critiques or analyses, it often lacks the depth that comes from students’ direct engagement with the material. Moreover, if AI performs this work, students miss the opportunity to develop critical thinking skills. Still, faculty recognized that AI could be a useful brainstorming tool by helping students explore various perspectives as long as they developed their own final analysis. Alternatively, students could critique AI-generated responses to identify nuances that AI might miss.

Lessons Learned from Faculty Discussion

Through thoughtful faculty discussions, key insights about AI and writing emerged:

Purpose-driven assignments and policies: Explicitly identifying the specific purpose of writing assignments must come first, and then AI policies can align with it rather than applying a blanket approach.
Transparency: Clearly communicating why students are being asked to write and when and how AI could be used or how it might negatively impact them helps students make intentional choices.
Process over product: Emphasizing writing as an active process, rather than simply a product, preserves its cognitive benefits and highlights the impacts of AI use on their development.
Metacognition: Asking students to reflect on their own learning processes and how writing and AI positively and negatively impact them can work to foster responsible AI engagement.

I left the discussion feeling renewed about the humanistic power of writing, and I hope the faculty did too. More importantly, I hope they left with a deeper understanding that the central issue isn’t whether to allow AI in student writing. It’s about why we ask students to write and how AI can either support or undermine these purposes and, by extension, our humanity. The ethical framework for AI use in education is meant to help faculty maintain writing as a powerful and purposeful human act, even in an era of rapid technological change.