AI, Generative Co-Creation, and New Possibilities for Teaching Composition

The term artificial intelligence (AI) has been the subject of moral panic, especially in recent years as questions concerning the tenuous position of the value of original composition become topics of fervent interest across disciplines. This, however, is not a workshop on the moral panic of AI, but instead offers an exploration of possibilities for integrating AI into teaching and learning and the potential for paradigmatic shifts in how we approach the relationship between human and machine. In this workshop, we will go over ways of starting conversations with students about their own relationships to their work and the ways in which AI act as mediators to encourage new ways of looking at language construction and usage. Aimed at those teaching variants of compositional coursework, whether that be in English, History, Psychology, Business, or Computer Science, together we will talk through activities to use to start deeper conversations in our classrooms about what it means to compose through machines and not simply using them. Participants are encouraged to bring their own devices for the hands-on portions of the workshop.

Speaker Biography: Abby (Bee) Rinaldi is a second-year student in the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media doctoral program at NC State. They study computational aesthetics through text and code, and their research focuses on the agencies present in objects and the transformative potential of building posthuman models of communication. They have taught coursework in media theory, journalism reporting and ethics, and composition and currently teach in the First Year Writing Program at NC State.