Process Narration Videos and authentic student writing

Just like everybody else in writing classrooms nowadays, I'm dealing with AI. I like to think I'm mostly working with it, although, my sanguine teaching nature aside, I'm for sure at times working against it.

In several classes, I've overtly invited students to write about and sometimes even for the machine, as in my recent Language Puzzles and Word Games: Issues in Modern Grammar course, which includes this writing project choice (among many): "Using a prompt similar to an assignment from one of your courses, compare the text created by a generative AI chatbot/natural language generator with your own writing specifically in terms of grammar and usage."

In the Fall, I got to talking to an exceptional student, Veronica Medlock, about the drafting process in her writing. After that conversation, she quickly created and sent me a short YouTube video of the drafting changes while she composed, accompanying the video with a voice narration of the process.

It was fascinating.

We're trying to take this show on the road and have sent in a conference proposal about how such "Process Narration Videos," as we're calling them, can help promote and support authenticity in student writing assignments. Students can compose and submit these easy-to-create videos, which are built on the draft stage "mapping/tracking" that is a fundamental component of writing composition tools like Word and Google Docs, with accompanying voice narration.

Why is this so great? Of course, the English and writing teaching and learning literature has been overflowing with discussions about the problems of teaching writing in the--dare I call it?--age of AI. Teaching publications are dedicating focused space to AI (1) and instructors nearly every day receive invitations to professional development opportunities or information about new ed tech tools. Language and literacy teachers at all levels (and, of course, in many, if not all, other academic disciplines, e.g., math and programming) are dealing with the challenges of AI in teaching with a range of attitudes, approaches, tools, and philosophies. 

Some of my colleagues feel the authenticity problem is so dire that they are abandoning process-driven writing approaches and are instead returning to blue books or other non-digital, offline writing approaches. Those who have not given up have taken various often time- and energy-consuming stances and approaches: Requiring increasing amounts of informal writing, carefully scrutinizing the drafting process, leaning heavily on AI checkers in a kind of technological arms race, etc.

But as part of an overall writing pedagogy, Process Narration Videos provide a foundationally sound, pedagogically driven solution to authenticity issues in writing instruction. They reinforce good writing pedagogy, as they are grounded in writing process and ask students to reflect on their writing. They also help students see different stages of their writing, incorporate metathinking, consider rhetorical choices, and embrace informal writing, which of course is often embedded in strong writing processes.  

If our proposal gets accepted, Veronica and I will discuss the compositional background of this approach while focusing on the practical, hands-on way that it can be applied in classrooms across educational levels and curricula.

An important point is that students are often as frustrated by the prospects of other students using AI as their teachers are. So we're aiming to hit a nice balance: While Process Narration Videos can serve a dutiful--and responsible--academic process in discouraging AI-connected plagiarism, they are also simply good teaching and learning practice.

Note:

1) The topic of the most recent issue of CCC [77.1] was, as the Editors’ Introduction stated, “A Dappled, Undisciplined Response to Generative AI."