{"id":407,"date":"2023-06-21T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/daretotransform\/?p=407"},"modified":"2026-03-26T10:35:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T10:35:03","slug":"developing-academic-literacies-in-the-era-of-artificial-intelligence-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/learning-matters\/2023\/06\/21\/developing-academic-literacies-in-the-era-of-artificial-intelligence-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing academic literacies in the era of artificial intelligence \u2013 part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Post written by Susan Robbins: Senior Lecturer in English Language (Sussex Centre for Language Studies)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This post follows on from an earlier post: developing academic literacies – part 1<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If ‘write an essay’ is an instruction to students that follows a period of input on a particular topic, then students using artificial intelligence to complete or assist them in the task could easily disrupt that assessment mode. But if the process <\/strong>of researching and writing an essay is taught, the level of disruption is potentially lower and we could look for ways to incorporate the use of AI into the process in ways that are useful and ethical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Academic writing and generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as Chat GPT <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At the recent University Education Festival<\/a> I took part in a discussion\/solution room with the title \u2018ChatGPT means the essay is dead\u2019. AI has the potential to affect any mode of assessment, so why single out the essay? I suppose it depends very much on what we mean by ‘essay’ as to how disruptive ChatGPT may or may not be. If ‘write an essay’ is an instruction to students that follows a period of input on a particular topic, then students using AI to complete or assist them in the task could easily disrupt that assessment mode. But if the process<\/strong> of researching and writing an essay is taught, the level of disruption is potentially lower and we could look for ways to incorporate the use of AI into the process in ways that are useful and ethical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching academic writing using an academic socialisation approach<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For several years I co-convened the core Academic Development module (AD) module on the Central Foundation Years programme (CFY) at the University of Sussex. This module was taken by up to 800+ students each year. The module was originally located in a \u2018bolt-on\u2019 position to the wider CFY programme, and opposition to this deficit model was evidenced by poor student evaluations. Focus groups and module evaluations showed that much of the students\u2019 dissatisfaction centered around their perception of AD as \u2018remedial\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the constraints relating to the way the CFY programme is structured, we were not able to adopt a full academic literacies approach (Lea & Street, 1998<\/a>). Drawing on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning literature, we decided that an approach akin to the academic socialisation<\/a> branch of the academic literacies concept would allow us to avoid a generic skills approach and would be realistic in the context in which we found ourselves. To enable this \u2018built-in\u2019 approach we engaged with CFY faculty to identify and develop areas of overlap and integrate (to the extent that we were able) the subject modules and AD, with the aim of helping students understand the ways \u2018things are done\u2019 in their discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main aim of the module is to teach discursive writing\/argumentation<\/a> \u2013 the ability to recognise an author\u2019s argument as you read, and construct arguments of your own\u00a0in both written and spoken work in ways that reflect disciplinary norms \u2013 a core process central to university study. In our experience, argumentation is a threshold concept (i.e. a concept deemed to be central to the mastery of a subject, or a \u2018conceptual gateway\u2019 that opens up \u2018previously inaccessible way[s] of thinking about something\u2019 Meyer & Land, 2003<\/a>) for students new to university study. On the module, the research and writing process is broken into clearly identifiable stages and practice opportunities are provided at each stage which encourage students to view the writing process as iterative, take risks in their work and try things out and make decisions about what does and doesn\u2019t work at every stage, and if necessary to go back and re-do aspects that were less successful. This approach is new to students leaving the school system and the transition required is substantial as they are required to think, read and write in entirely new ways. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The use of a process approach<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Having identified a theoretical base, we chose to design the syllabus using a process approach. This methodology is not a new or innovative one, as it was introduced in the 1980s in the discipline of English for Academic Purposes, but when students are expected to arrive with, or very quickly acquire, the necessary cultural capital and skills to succeed at university a process approach can make visible the things that are encouraged and rewarded in HE (see Haggis, 2006<\/a>). It may not immediately be evident to students, for example, that staff assume they will:<\/p>\n\n\n\n