In late 2022…

…the arrival of ChatGPT struck fear in the hearts of teachers everywhere and prompted journalists and pundits to proclaim the death of the essay. But others rejoiced at having a tool that could generate responses to all kinds of questions in seconds. While the full impact of this new tool remains to be seen, what is known is that thinkers have debated for centuries how and why we write–and what writing is good for. Socrates himself thought writing was nothing more than a useful reminder. 

But his view runs directly counter to contemporary scholarship about writing, which tells us that writing is a powerful way we figure out what we think. As the novelist E.M. Forster famous asked, “how can I know what I think until I see what I say?” Writing is not, despite romantic ideals to the contrary, the simple transcription of clear and distinct ideas from brain to page (or screen). Ideas and arguments develop through the process of writing itself, messy as that might be. But what exactly is that process, and how does generative AI complicate the picture?

Students in WRI 111 explore these questions. We reviewed some early research on the writing process and looked at how writing studies scholars have tried to capture and describe the writing process. We reflected on previous writing experiences, we responded to scholarship on process, we thought about how genres intersect with and shape process, and we even tried to capture our own process. Ultimately, we thought and wrote extensively about how the advent of generative AI, like ChatGPT, will challenge and complicate our writing processes and writing instruction in ways we can’t even quite predict yet.

This magazine is a collaborative effort to archive and showcase the writing that emerged from that class. Students worked in teams to solicit submissions and manage the revision/edition process with their classmates before compiling the “final” version of this magazine.