Hello, Writing Studies!
The third update to TextGenEd: Continuing Experiments (Eds. Carly Schnitzler, Annette Vee, and Tim Laquintano) is out now, from WAC Clearinghouse. The original TextGenEd, released in Aug 2023, was the first open education resource to focus on AI assignments. Continuing Experiments has kept up with new innovations in college classrooms. The newest update includes 23 assignments that feature AI or text generation technology in creative and innovative ways. All assignments featured in the series are licensed Creative Commons: you are free to adapt them in noncommercial contexts with credit.
Check it out! Review it! Share it with colleagues!
https://wac.colostate.edu/repository/collections/continuing-experiments/august-2025/
More about specific contributions to this edition:
This collection includes assignments to build critical AI literacy among students, including ways to help them use AI in research (Howard); collect outputs for an audit of AI (Adams and Baker); do hands-on experimentation with AI tokenization (Ridgeway); and understand and minimize hallucination of scholarly references (Cole, Maher, and Rice). The section on Creative Explorations features playful assignments that have students: simulate and interview historical figures (Stephen); imagine scholarly synthesis through AI images (Christensen); and compare AI- and human-written screenplays for style (Li). In Ethical Considerations, students dive into the problems AI presents to composers in assignments that ask them to: reflect on AI’s collective analysis of a class dataset of writing philosophies (Navickas and Davies); probe for social bias in technical communication applications of AI (Pollak); collectively write a class AI policy (Banville); and implement a metacognitive reflection process for writing with AI (Yang and Harker). The section on Professional Writing features assignments in which students: rewrite AI outputs with an eye towards inclusion (Xu); propose recommendations for specific workplace AI policies (McCaughey); draft professional bios using AI (Gardner); use AI to refine audience-specific emails (Banu). The Prompt Engineering section helps students to: implement a rigorous prompting and reflecting framework for collaborative AI writing (Law); rigorously test the extent of AI’s capabilities (Morrison); work on paraphrasing techniques with AI in an English for Academic Purposes course (Spring). Finally, in Rhetorical Engagements, students can: engineer and interrogate simulated audiences with AI (Harms-Abasolo); work on questions, transcriptions and other ways AI can enhance interview research (Rabbi); explore gender politics and genre in AI by drafting a feminist manifesto (Smith); examine biases in both AI outputs and human inputs (Enaya and Eaton); experiment with written, audio, and video AI and human feedback using co-created criteria and rubrics (Cole, et al.). Together, these 23 assignment sequences represent the largest collection of pedagogical explorations with AI since the original TextGenEd in 2023. We are thrilled that so many teachers are taking on this challenge successfully and sharing what they’ve learned.
Annette Vee
Associate Professor of English
University of Pittsburgh
Out now! TextGenEd Continuing Experiments