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Eng 598

Writing With & About AI

Dr. Joe Essid

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Introductions!

  • Tell us who you are and, in a sentence, why you decided to take this course.
  • Why did they ask me, called an “expert on AI,” (which I don’t believe) to teach this?
  • 2025’s AI moment: past the initial fears and hyperbole. AI integrated into search engines and writing tools, yet academia generally responding slowly and begrudgingly.
  • AI no longer a fad, though technical challenges loom that may temper the promises of CEOs and boosters. Period of transition ahead for them, for us, for companies, K-12, higher ed.

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Our Goals

  • Acquire fluency with a variety of AI platforms for a variety of tasks
  • Practice writing and reading at a graduate level
  • Produce content you can use at work or school
  • Hone critical-thinking skills yet admit “what I still need to know”
  • Learn ethical and productive uses of AI
  • Avoid overreliance on one AI or on AI, generally
  • ADD VALUE as “meaning makers” to AI content, or not be employed in a few years
  • Discover ethical, environmental, and social challenges AI poses
  • Explore ways to mitigate those challenges.

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Course Information

  • The syllabus. Find it from the teaching link at joeessid.com
  • Attendance & deadlines on syllabus: please review with care.
  • Participation (Journal, in-class work) 50% of your grade (thank AI for that).
  • A course not in Blackboard?
  • Bb a “gated community” at odds with how I teach and publish.
  • IWCA AI Task-Force is watching our work!
  • Writers who are about to publish on AI topics, for my and Saurabh Anand’s forthcoming anthology.
  • UR administration, including the VP of Information Services, President’s Cabinet, and Provost’s Office.

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Your Questions / Info From Our Survey

  • 2 of you use AI daily; 1 has never used AI
  • A variety of AI used: Gemini, ChatGPT, CoPilot
  • No one mentioned Claude, Grok, Perplexity, DeepSeek, Dall-E, Midjourney, or ElevenLabs
  • Desires to learn about AI for use on the job or in classes
  • To learn why so many faculty refuse to employ AI
  • To find out how it influences writing & multimedia/multimodal work.

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Break Time

See you in 15!

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Orienting questions: Freewrite time!

5 minutes:

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How does what Gil and Gladwell discuss relate to your experience with AI? What are your concerns about your future work, after watching this (in particular, the parts of the video following 15:44 about the future of work)?

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Orienting Question 2: More Freewriting!

5 minutes:

How do you think YOU can prepare in this class and elsewhere for a workplace where AI usage is not only common but demanded?

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Our Reading/Viewing Journal

  • To practice graduate-level reading skills: analysis, synthesis, metacognition (thinking about your own thinking–AI cannot do that).
  • To make class interactive: we begin each week with questions from your journals. Don’t fall behind.
  • I’ll grade them all several times, first all, then staggering them so you’ll get a participation estimate at least monthly if not more often.
  • A word on AI hallucinations and the “Hard F” policy.
  • Example of a journal entry here.

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Next Week: In Person

Questions?

Now or via

jessid@richmond.edu

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