Teaching with Writing Blog

The Teaching with Writing Blog uses categories to describe the contents of previous entries to assist readers in finding timely and appropriate resources. In this March Blog Post, we’ll reissue some of the most popular and cited posts on working with sources.

The arrival of ChatGPT has sent shockwaves through popular media and higher education circles. Headlines have suggested that artificial intelligence could render some familiar genres and technologies obsolete (including the college essay and Google).

While students in nearly every upper-division course will be asked to analyze and synthesize information, the meaning of these terms changes with instructional contexts. They may analyze scholarly arguments to make an assertion about the state of knowledge or create a new research question. Students may also analyze results from experimental tests to draw accurate conclusions from measurement, while in another course, they may be tasked with analyzing multiple policies or practices and then designing their own.

The final weeks of the semester can be a period of frenzied production as students prepare drafts of their final projects—proposals, essays, presentations, etc.—with hopes of receiving guidance from their instructors and teaching assistants before turning in final versions. While intentionally scaffolded assignments can do much to support students through the process of completing a final project, they do not alleviate the need for timely feedback.

By Joe Moses

Now is an opportune time to work on your course syllabus. As you do so, we invite you to consult with a colleague in the Writing Across the Curriculum Program. Whether you are creating a new syllabus, dusting off an old one, or making substantial adjustments to a recently inherited one, we’re here to support your efforts to craft a syllabus that fosters an atmosphere of academic belonging for your students and for yourself.