Writing in the Disciplines

Teaching Writing with Generative AI

BU writing instructors brainstormed this list of teaching ideas in the spirit of exploration and experimentation. We will continue to refine and update. You’ll notice that almost all of the suggestions end with a recommendation that students reflect on, debrief, compare, or discuss the AI-generated text—a step crucial to developing their critical AI literacy. Learn […]

Generative AI & Writing Assignment Design

The availability of generative AI requires writing instructors to be more deliberate about assignment design. Yet many principles we have always valued remain the same: Prompts should provide opportunities for students to use writing as a means to practice critical thinking and reflection; to engage deeply with texts, using sources to help them generate interesting […]

Teaching About AI-Mediated Writing

Artificial intelligence (AI) is shifting how we experience reading and writing. Students and instructors alike need some understanding of the main limits and affordances of AI-generated writing. This page offers some basic information for writing instructors and some guidance on how to talk with students about generative AI. Large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, use […]

Five Things Every College Student Should Know About AI-assisted Writing

Five Things Every College Student Should Know About AI-assisted Writing How is AI-generated text produced? Natural language generators like ChatGPT analyze patterns, language structures, and contextual information using complex algorithms and extensive datasets. Based on this information, they make predictions to generate human-like text based on specific input or prompts, going beyond simple error detection […]

Writing Instruction in the Age of Generative AI

“Writing is thinking” asserts compositionist John Warner in a 2023 column on AI in Inside Higher Ed. “If text is produced without thinking, that’s not writing. That’s something else.”  If you agree with Warner, it follows that the best way to respond to the rise of generative AI may be to continue or expand the […]

Providing Feedback

One of our expectations in the CAS Writing Program is that faculty will provide students with “timely and substantive” feedback on their writing, both on drafts and on final versions of papers/projects. In general, all faculty will meet with students individually at least twice in the semester to discuss their writing in formal writing conferences, scheduled […]

Facilitating Discussions

Each Flipped Learning Module (FLM) is a set of short videos and online activities that can be used (in whole or in part) to free up class time from content delivery for greater student interaction. At the end of the module, students are asked to fill out a brief survey, in which we adopt the […]

Interview a Professor

In this exercise, students interview another professor about writing in their field and then reflect on what connections they might make between writing in different contexts. Guide to Oral/Signed Communication in Writing Classrooms Objective To learn about the role of research and writing in different disciplines and professions; to learn about how research and writing […]

Anatomy of an Assignment Sheet

In this guide, we invite instructors to think through the different sections of an assignment sheet and perhaps take a fresh look at their own assignment sheets. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find some insights into more effective assignment sheets from Writing Consultants working in the CAS Writing Center. Key Elements Things to […]