In March, our Teaching with Writing Blog addressed the complexities of documenting how Generative AI might be used in students’ writing processes. It provided suggestions for creating an Acknowledging AI assignment for courses where AI use is allowed. In this blog post, we offer two additional tools for helping students understand the multiple ways that Generative AI might be used in writing processes and the best ways to provide attribution for that use.

AI Expectations Worksheet: Prompting Conversations

Developed at Wake Forest University’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching, this AI expectations worksheet can be invaluable for guiding discussion with students about acceptable uses for Generative AI. As one component of their excellent suite of syllabus resources on AI, the worksheet gives faculty the chance to consider a variety of potential uses to which students might employ Generative AI, including idea generation, organizational assistance, translation, analysis, commentary, and revision.

The expectations worksheet offers sixty different scenarios of potential student use and allows respondents to identify them as acceptable, unacceptable, conditional (okay within specific boundaries), or irrelevant. Its content can be easily adapted into a student-facing Zoom poll, Google Form, or other interactive activity in synchronous or asynchronous courses. Perfect for use at the start of a new summer course or next semester, the Expectations Worksheet can be valuable for faculty in starting conversations about if and how students may have used generative AI tools in the past and what might be reasonable and allowable in their current course context.

The Artificial Intelligence Disclosure Framework: Encouraging Transparency

Kari D. Weaver, the Learning, Teaching, and Instructional Design Librarian at the University of Waterloo, developed the Artificial Intelligence Disclosure framework to assist researchers and writers in explaining how AI tools have contributed to creating research documents. While formal citation allows for documenting quotations of text from large language models, most uses of AI tools can’t be simply cited. Building on an earlier framework for the participation of individual researchers as part of research teams, Weaver clarifies the various roles and tasks where Generative AI can augment the effort of writers and researchers.

Weaver offers both a descriptive framework and a rubric for offering attribution statements that you can provide students to help them accurately and completely disclose their use of Gen AI. In courses where faculty members and instructors have adopted “Embrace” or “Allow” policies, this frame can also be used for planning next semester's courses, allowing instructors to fine-tune their course policies to more clearly delineate the approved from the forbidden.

The Writing Across the Curriculum Team is available to support you as you navigate choices around AI policies and assignments in your courses. Please check out our upcoming events and opportunities: 

Faculty Teaching with Writing Seminar

The Teaching with Writing Faculty Seminar offers UMN faculty members a congenial, retreat-like opportunity to develop or revise writing assignments, activities, instruction, and assessments for a course they teach. This seminar welcomes instructors across the University's curriculum; we understand writing as a broad category encompassing verbal, numeric, figurative, visual, and alphabetic modes. Participants will enjoy lively conversation with interesting colleagues from across disciplines and plenty of good coffee, tea, and snacks.

Teaching with Writing for Teaching Assistants and Graduate Instructors

In August 2025, the Writing Across the Curriculum program is pleased to offer TWO interactive workshops for graduate instructors (GIs) and teaching assistants (TAs), each focused on commenting and grading student writing (papers, problem sets, lab reports, presentations, posters, etc.).

• Commenting on and Grading Writing (August 27, 2025) is offered to Teaching Assistants who assist with faculty-directed courses, either running sections or contributing in other ways. 
• Assigning and Assessing Writing (August 28, 2025) is offered to TAs who serve as graduate student instructors for stand-alone courses. Both events will be held in person on the Twin Cities (East Bank) campus.

Registration is open now, and space is limited.

Consultations

The WAC team is always available for one-on-one consultations to discuss ways to craft assignments, assessments, and course policies around writing, regardless of your choices and preferences regarding AI use. Whether you prefer to refuse the use of AI tools in your course or are interested in exploration or innovation with new tools, we are happy to help you design writing activities that acknowledge the complexity of the Generative AI era.