OLALEKAN
ADEPOJU
Does AI sponsor or game literacy? I have been pondering this question for quite some time, especially in the light of my conversations with some friends and students who use AI tools frequently. From interacting with them, I did not get a sense of how these AI tools are supporting (their) learning. Rather it seems they are engaging AI either as another kind of ‘search engine’ (unfortunately) or to outsource their writing responsibilities to a chatbot.
This approach to AI use remains one of the biggest worries of writing teachers. While some teachers have embraced the affordances of AI tools in their writing classrooms, many other teachers are still very skeptical of the value of AI writing tools in their classrooms due to certain limitations. I believe that at the heart of these opposing perspectives is the uncertainty about AI as a literacy sponsor or not.
In the words of Deborah Brant (1998), literacy sponsors are any agents/forces local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy- and gain advantage by it in someway. Reflecting on this description and the many interactions I’ve had with users of AI tools, I wonder if the mainstream use of AI tools for writing really supports or suppresses literacy.
How then might AI be engaged as either a literacy sponsor or as a literacy ‘gamer’? Well, ask yourself the following questions: Is this AI writing tool (e.g. ChatGPT) writing FOR me or is it writing WITH me?
- Writing FOR me: I describe this practice as a mode of outsourcing writing responsibilities to chatbot which entails that little to no learning will occur since the focus is primarily on the produced text. This approach is technically gaming the learning process with AI.
- Writing WITH me: On the other hand, engaging AI as a tool that writes WITH you signals a relational practice of critical engagement whereby AI is supporting your writing process; the focus here is on process. In this regard, AI serves as a sponsor literacy as it enables you to leverage your prior knowledge of writing principles to explore/expand unfamiliar (and even familiar) writing genres.
As a literacy expert who understands that students will engage AI tools in their reading and writing practices, I must keep retooling my pedagogical approach to accommodate this reality. By so doing, I will be helping my students to engage AI tools as unique agents to support (sponsor) their learning rather than an agent to game (and in turn suppress) their learning experience.
From folks’ interactions with users of AI, I wonder what you think about how they leverage or not leverage AI as a literacy sponsor.
© Olalekan Adepoju, PhD