Rhetoric, Writing, and AI

Syllabus

WRTG 479/527: Writing, Rhetoric, and AI

Steven D. Krause

613L Pray-Harrold Hall

skrause@emich.edu (By far the best way to get a hold of me)

734-487-0985 (I rarely check my voicemail)

Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays. 8:00-9:30 AM, and by appointment (I will hold office hours in my Pray-Harrold office, though I can also meet via Zoom.)

Description

This online and asynchronous course will explore the relationships between writing, rhetoric, and artificial intelligence (AI), engaging with historical perspectives and contemporary debates. We will begin by discussing the early history of AI and the introduction of “computer assisted instruction” writing tools in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We’ll discuss the many problems of AI today, including copyright and trademark violations, the environmental and energy costs, and the hypothetical existential crisis of Artificial General Intelligence. We will also examine approaches to using AI in writing pedagogy and the practices of professional writers.

Note that this is a “special topics” course about a quickly moving and changing phenomenon, AI. A lot of what we will be doing this semester is as new to me as it is to you, and it likely that there will be some new AI development yet this semester we will want to add to our schedule. So be prepared for some schedule changes to the course as we go along, and I hope that all of you will help me by being an active part in that process.

Readings

All of the assigned readings this semester will be available for free from the course Canvas site, and they will mostly be PDFs and web-based articles. Graduate students might need to purchase a book for the book review assignment.

You will need a way to take notes on/about the readings you complete! Simply scrolling through a PDF or website is not the kind of careful reading and analysis you will need to do to succeed in this course. There are two different ways you can do this:

  • Print the readings and your research. Old fashioned paper and pens/pencils/highlighters! There are lots of reasons why this is probably the best of these two different options. There are numerous places where you can print out the readings and your research on campus and elsewhere, and I assure you that the cost of printing out materials for this course will be significantly less than the cost of an assigned packet of readings or a textbook.
  • Use a tablet device or similar device that allows you to take notes on an electronic document. There are a variety of tools that can do this nowadays, including iPads (which is what I use), other similar tablets, some laptops, etc. The key here is it should be a tool where you can mark-up and take notes on the document itself.

A Bit More About the Role of Artificial Intelligence in the Class

We will be spending some time this semester experimenting with using AI to create texts, images, videos, etc., along with asking AI to give us feedback, coaching, and other help. This is probably not surprising– after all, the class is about AI!– but this does have some implications I want to emphasize.

  • You are going to have to use AI to complete some of the assignments in the course. That’s probably not surprising, but I want to make this clear from the start. My experience has been that while a lot of students are very comfortable using AI (some a little too comfortable, if you get my drift), other students (especially more advanced students in English) do not. I completely understand this aversion, which is why in the classes I teach that are not about AI, I do not make students use it. However, this is a class about AI, meaning you are going to have to use it– even if you would rather not. If you are someone who does not want to ever use AI for anything, then you should probably not take this course. 
  • While not required, I strongly strongly recommend that you pay for at least one of the major/legacy AI models, and I would also strongly recommend that you choose either ChatGPT (from OpenAI) and/or Claude. I would not recommend you spend the money for Google’s AI Gemini because we all already have access to the “pro” version of this AI through your EMU Google account. You will definitely get better results with the “not free” versions of AI, and you will want to use two or three different versions of AI for some assignments in order to compare the results. Both ChatGPT and Claude are $20 or less a month, and you can sign up for both services for a month at a time.
  • Don’t cheat! We will be talking about this in some detail this semester, and what does or doesn’t count as cheating with AI is clearly a fuzzy and moving target. But generally speaking, you don’t want to falsely represent output from AI as work that you created yourself. 

Online Format and Attendance

This class is offered entirely online and asynchronously– that is, we will never have a meeting as a group at the same time via Zoom or f2f. There are several important implications to this, so please review this section carefully and make sure you are comfortable with the rules of this format before you begin the semester.

  • You will use your EMU Google account extensively. Besides email, we will be working extensively with Google Docs and other applications available to you via your EMU Google account. Make sure you are comfortable with using this account.
  • You MUST check your EMU email account every single day. Every. Single. Day. Email is the only way I have to communicate directly with you regarding class announcements, individual questions, late or missing assignments, conference appointments, etc. Texting is not an option or a substitute for email. If your primary email address is not your EMU email account, you should set up your email so it automatically forwards to your primary account. Smart phones can be easily configured so you can use your EMU email. While I’m at it, I’d strongly encourage you to read this short essay about “How To Email a Professor (or Just About Anyone Else, Too).”Links to an external site.
  • Under no circumstances will I accept any excuse for a problem that is a result of you not reading and responding to email regarding the class. For example, if I email you to remind you about a due date or to update a Google Doc because you forgot to properly share it so your peers and I can comment on it, you need to respond as soon as possible and certainly within 24 hours. If you do not do this, I will enforce penalties for not getting your work done and your grade will be impacted.
  • Under no circumstances will I accept a “lack of internet (or computer) access” as an excuse for not getting work done on time or for online attendance. This includes foreseen and unforeseen circumstances. For example, if you are planning a two week family vacation during the semester where you don’t expect to have wifi access, you will surely fail the class. If your computer breaks or your regular computer access is otherwise interrupted, then you will need to address the problem immediately.

It is also important to note that “Writing, Rhetoric, and AI” is an online class, but it is not a self-paced/self-study online class!  Most of thing things we will be doing this term– discussing readings, peer review, working through the different technical exercises, and so forth– will depend on interaction between you and your classmates. 

To make this work, you will be expected to “attend” electronically and asynchronously during the course of the week. See the schedule for the details of this, but basically, I expect everyone to participate in the class at an absolute minimum of twice a week, generally between Monday and Wednesday, and between Wednesday and Friday.

The implications of this online attendance requirement are significant. If you do not participate at all during the class at a given point in the schedule, I will count you as “absent” from that portion of the class. If you are absent from the class five times, I will dock your online discussion and conferencing grade by 30%, or a total of about one letter grade for the course. If you are absent from the class six times, I will dock 100% of your online discussion and conferencing grade and you will not be able to pass the course.

Stuff You Need To Do

The class is worth a total of 1000 points for undergraduate students and 1250 points for graduate students.

Participation: 250 points

The bulk of our class discussions will take place via threaded discussion here on canvas.emich.edu; essentially, the threaded discussions replace most of the kind of discussion we might have in a traditional “face-to-face” class.  There are two types of discussions in the class, “ungraded” and “graded” ones. The ungraded discussions are where I will introduce new assignments and make announcements. For example, the first discussion of the term where I go over the syllabus, schedule, and class policies is ungraded in that I don’t have any requirements for your participation.

In contrast, the graded/required discussions are exactly that– graded and required, and they are marked on the class schedule as such. The first graded/required discussion of the term is where I ask you to each introduce yourselves and discuss a bit about what you think of AI. 

Here’s how the graded discussions will work:

  • This is probably obvious, but to be successful with these discussions (and the class in general), you need to complete the assigned readings. So before anything else, do the reading!
  • To start off each discussion, I’ll post a link to the reading and usually offer a few introductory comments. You need to post your initial reactions to the reading before you will be able see the posts from your classmates. Then, like in a discussion on social media or elsewhere online, you will follow up your initial comment/post with conversational comments/posts with your peers.
  • Your posts should be in the form of a “discussion:” that is, questions, comments, thoughts, reactions, etc. as if we were all in the same time and place talking with each other about the class.  While you want your discussion to indicate that you have read and thought about the topic at hand, don’t write “mini-reports” that fail to engage others.
  • Certainly you don’t need to write long responses– in fact, posts that are more than 150 or so words are often too long– but responses that merely say “I agree” or “I think what Joan says is correct” aren’t useful.
  • Even though these responses are conversational and don’t need to be excessively “wordsmithed,” it probably is a good idea to at least spell-check, write in complete sentences, use conventional punctuation, etc.
  • The most important part for this aspect of the class is that you do it and you do it in a timely fashion and that you return to the discussion over the next few days of the discussion: that is, you read each others’ posts, write posts of your own for others to read and you participate according to the schedule. For most of the discussions, your initial post is due by the end of the day on either Monday or Wednesday (unless the university isn’t open on a Monday or a Wednesday, in which case the initial post will be due the following day). After everyone’s initial posting, the discussion usually continues until Wednesday or Friday. Note that you can write your initial post any time on Mondays or Wednesdays. 

Grading Online Discussion. For each discussion for our term, I will give you a letter grade (as a GPA number) based on your level of participation:

  • A (4) = Your initial post is on time and you respond to more than one of your classmates’ posts at least 4 hours apart.
    B (3) = Your initial post is late and you respond to more than one of your classmates’ post at least 4 hours apart, or your initial post is on time and respond to one of your classmates’ posts at least 4 hours apart.
    C (2) =Your initial post is late and you respond to one of your classmates’ post, or your initial post is on time but you don’t respond to any of your classmates.
    D  (1)= Your initial post is late and you don’t respond to anyone else.
    F (0= You do not participate in the discussion.

The easiest way to succeed at participation is to be sure to write your initial post some time on the day when discussions start (usually Monday or Wednesday) and then to follow up on each of the next two days of the discussion. The reason I require you to post “at least 4 hours apart” is to prevent the phenomenon of “post ‘n go:” that is, you log in once to write your initial post and then you follow that post up with two more in just a few minutes. This defeats the purpose of these discussions, which is to interact with you peers. In order to do that, you need to give your peers a bit of time to write their posts first.

You can usually begin participating in these discussions early, but not late. In other words, if the discussion is scheduled to begin on a Monday or a Wednesday, I generally set things up so you can write your initial post some time on Sunday or Tuesday. However, you cannot post late— that is posting on Thursday on a discussion that ends on Wednesday or on Saturday for a discussion that ends on Friday.

This might all seem kind of complicated, but once we get going with how this works, you’ll see what I mean. In the first week or two of the semester, I’ll give each of you some specific feedback to let you know if you are doing this right.

One more thing about the discussions: I too will be an active participant, often making contributions just like you, sometimes recognizing really good posts with a little “thumbs up,” and so forth. 

To calculate this grade: I will will convert your participation GPA to a letter grade and then points. I will make adjustments to that grade based on your interaction in peer review sessions. Each of the semester will be worth 125 points.

The Major Writing Assignments: 650 points

There are three major writing assignments this term. We will discuss the specific requirements for all of these assignments in more detail, but here are the basics for now:

The AI Writing Experiments and Reflection Essay: 200 points

This assignment will involved a series of “experiments” where you will use a generative AI tool as part of your writing/creating process. You will share the the results of your AI writing experiments with the class as you complete them. You will also write a brief reflection essay (completed with Google Docs and around 1250 words or so) about the experience, one that makes connections to our assigned class readings, your research, and class discussions.

The AI News & Updates Collaborative Annotated Bibliography Website and Report: 200 points

The assignment is a class collaboration where each of you will share during the course of the semester at least eight different citations for interesting readings about AI currently in the news. This is an ongoing assignment throughout the semester. To facilitate this, I’ll ask you to participate as a contributor to a website I’ve set up for the course. You will also write a brief essay (completed with Google Docs and around 1250 words or so) about your experiences with this assignment.

The AI Research Question Essay: 250 points

This will be a research-based essay about a question concerning generative AI you have that you would like to research. While your essay will include research to support your points (from our readings, from the collaborative annotated bibliography project, and from your own research), your goal is to create an essay (completed with Google Docs and about 2000 words or so) in the style of a MSM analysis similar to one of the readings we discuss this term. Note that this essay assignment will require you to post regular progress reports on your writing process and on your research, and there will be a peer review session of your work in progress before you turn it in to me. 

Graduate Students: Book Review Presentation and Essay: 250 points

Students registered for WRTG 527 will also complete a book review based on one of numerous books currently available about AI. I will meet with graduate students individually to discuss possible books suitable for review. To present their review materials, graduate students will write a short review essay (about 1250 words), which will be turned into me, and also make a short (no more than 10 minutes) YouTube video presentation about the book they reviewed. As a class, we will discuss the video presentations.

A few more important things about the writing assignments:

  • Note “An Important Note About Google Docs” below; the short version is you will need to use Google Docs to write your essays from beginning to end.
  • You need to follow the current rules of MLA Style. We will discuss this in class (including some “refresher” exercises/discussion, but all of your essays this semester should use MLA style for in-text citation, for the works cited section of your essays, and for the entries on the AI News and Updates Substack site. 
  • It is crucial that you hand in the essay assignments on time! This is especially important for peer review activities; after all, if you don’t have a draft for your peers to review, it defeats the purpose of the whole activity. If you don’t have a mostly complete draft for peer review, I will deduct a half-letter grade from the final grade for that assignment. If you turn in assignments due to me after the deadline, I will deduct a half-letter grade from the assignment, and I will continue to deduct a half-letter for every 72 hours you are late.  There is one very important exception to this rule:  if you have a legitimate reason for not being able to complete one of these assignments, you need to alert me beforethe due date and tell me what’s going on. As long as you you let me know you can’t meet a deadline before but not when the assignment is due, I will almost always not grant you an extension. 

An “Opportunity for Success” Final: 100 points

Finally, there is a final, one that will be about the assigned readings and discussions this term. I describe this as an “opportunity for success” final because as long as you keep up with the assigned readings and discussions, it will be quite easy to successfully complete. 

An Important Note About Google Docs

You will need to use Google Docs to write all parts of the reflection essays, the AI Research Question Essay, the short review essay for the Graduate Student Book Review project, and the opportunity for success final. This means from the very beginning of your process (brainstorming, outline ideas, the initial draft) through peer review and turning in a final version to me for assessment, each of these essay assignments will be completed within the same Google Doc. I will not accept work completed with any other word process software. If you use an AI tool or Grammarly to proofread/check your essay as part of your process, DO NOT copy and paste a new version of your essay to replace what you had written in Google Docs. Instead, go through the original essay and make the changes suggested by Grammarly or AI.

I have three reasons why I insist that you work on each project from start to finish within one Google Doc.

  • Google Docs is free and easy to use, it allows you to access your documents from any computer, and it’s easy share your documents with me and your classmates with just a link (rather than an attachment).
  • Google Docs allows for easy commenting and collaboration with others, something that will be a critical part of our peer review process. 
  • Finally, Google Docs allows me as the instructor to see your progress by reviewing the document history, which is very useful for me to see your writing process from start to finish. As the course progresses, I will provide more details about how I specifically want you to use Google Docs in this class.

In order to pass this course, you must turn in all of the writing projects, regardless of your grades on any of the work this semester.

Grading Scale:

So, given all this, here’s how grading works (I’m sharing this as a percentage since the point totals for undergraduate and graduate students are different):

A 100-94% | A- 93-90% | B+ 89-87% | B 86-84% | B- 83-80% | C+ 79-77% | C 76-74% | C- 73-70% | D+ 69-67% | D 66-64% | D-=63-60%

The Fine Print/Services for You

Academic Integrity/Plagiarism

Plagiarism occurs when you present words or ideas without acknowledging their source, whether intentionally or not. Because of the design and nature of this course, it will take as much (or more) work for you to plagiarize then it will to actually complete the projects for this class. I assume that you are here to improve and gain confidence as a writer, so it is vital that all writing you do for this course be your own. You should also pay special attention to the quotations, paraphrases, and citation practices you use in every project.

If you plagiarize in this class, I might assign you a failing grade, and your case may be passed to the university for additional disciplinary action. If you have any questions about plagiarism, please ask me in advance of a due date. For a more detailed explanation of EMU’s stance on academic integrity, refer to Section V. A. of the Student Conduct Code.

Of course, AI complicates this in several different ways. Obviously, we will be doing assignments this semester (notably the AI Writing Experiments) where you will be required to use AI tools. I also am fine if you use AI tools for brainstorming and revision ideas for your essays (and that includes quasi-AI tools like Grammarly), though you need to disclose the details of how you used AI in your writing. 

However, I think copying and pasting large passages of text from AI and presenting it as something you wrote yourself is about the same as copying and pasting large passages of text from any other source without any citation is cheating. You should not do that.

Campus Resources

There are a lotof support resources at EMU available for you, both for academic and non-academic needs. You should see this part of the EMU Student Handbook for a complete list of links.Links to an external site. Academic resources most useful for our class include the Academic Projects CenterLinks to an external site., the Holman Success CenterLinks to an external site., and the University Writing CenterLinks to an external site..

Non-academic resources include the Center of Race and Ethnicity (CORE)Links to an external site., the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS)Links to an external site., the Disability Resources Center (DRC)Links to an external site., the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Resource CenterLinks to an external site., The Office of Diversity and Affirmative ActionLinks to an external site., The Title IX Compliance Office,Links to an external site. and Swoop’s Food PantryLinks to an external site.. If you have any questions about any of these resources (or other resources), please ask me and/or contact the Office of the Ombuds.