1 Introduction to AI: Overview
The role of AI in composition and critical thinking
In a writing class you might be wondering what role artificial intelligence (AI) can, could, or especially SHOULD have in composition and critical thinking.
For younger students, the view is often that AI is to be avoided at all costs. In fact, many students entering college have been taught that AI is a cheat code to avoid doing work.
For instructors, the use of AI is often intertwined with ideas related to plagiarism. Purdue OWL’s section on plagiarism reminds students that using material from any source requires that they acknowledge the source. Purdue OWL now shows how to cite the use of AI, specifically when students are using ChatGPT. This Purdue OWL section shares guidelines from all the major citation formats.
One of the challenges with AI is that the sources of the information are so varied and unknown that students may need practice to see that the answers are not always to be believed. In ENG102 our course motto is “Good thinking starts with good questions.” In our critical reading course, the course motto is “We love everyone, and we trust no one.” These ideas help frame our work as we practice using AI tools. The goal of the practice is to help identify the ways in which AI might support us as strong writers and critical thinkers. A related goal is to learn the ways in which AI is NOT helpful. Ron Carucci points out that generative AI “demands a solid foundation of truthful data sourced from human experts” (2024). A major hurdle is that novice learners may not have sufficient background knowledge to determine the extent to which information is reliable and credible.
According to the Artificial Intelligence Literacy Framework (AILF), one quarter of the competencies relate to the student’s ability to evaluate and critique the quality of AI output. These are definitely higher order thinking skills. Because AI is created by humans, all of the limitations associated with any type of information are built in, including bias. In addition, algorithms and filters can limit access to information just as other computer searches do.
