Learning Outcomes

By completing this project, you will:

1. Understand how writing functions as a technology that reshapes human cognition, memory, and communication, drawing on Ong’s theory of the “technologizing of the word” and Bolter’s theory of remediation.
2. Demonstrate accurate summary skills by clearly distinguishing the claims, evidence, and terminology used by Ong and Bolter to describe the evolution of writing systems and their cultural implications.
3. Use quotation, paraphrase, and attribution ethically and effectively to represent scholarly ideas in your own words, with correct APA 7 citations.
4. Critically evaluate GenAI’s ability to summarize complex scholarly arguments, identifying when summaries misrepresent the original texts, oversimplify key concepts, or lack the nuance of human interpretation.
5. Translate disciplinary knowledge for a public, interdisciplinary audience (students, faculty, administrators), adapting scholarly concepts for clarity and accessibility in an oral presentation format.
6. Reflect on the value of writing to human consciousness, social structure, and agency, and articulate what might be lost or gained as generative AI assumes more writing functions in educational and professional settings.

Deliverables

1. Discussion Post on Ong and Bolter Readings + Response to Two Peers’ Posts
2. Presentation
3. Metacognitive Report Addressing AI Usage
   • (This report is submitted in same Canvas drop box where you upload your presentation.)
4. Response to Peers’ Presentations

Significance – Why Does This Assignment Matter?

In order to write with authority about the potential effects of GenAI on humanity, you need an understanding of what writing is and how writing shapes on human agency, creativity, and power. Preparing this presentation will introduce you to foundational research and scholarship in writing studies, the academic discipline that studies writing. This presentation will prepare you to research how generative AI is reshaping authorship, authority, learning, and work, and what that means for human agency, authorship, copyright, and creativity. This assignment also gives you practice experimenting with GenAI tools. It supports a core course outcome in oral communication by requiring you to deliver a clear, effective recorded presentation with slides.

Rhetorical Situation

You have been awarded a research stipend by your university to research GenAI. You are a member of a large research team that has been given a semester to research, design, and write “Navigating AI Disruption: A Guide for the University Community.” The aim of this “guide” is to define AI usage policies for the university community, and to justify those polices by rooted them in research, theory, and scholarship on GenAI.

Dr. Stacy Adams, your school’s AI Czar, has asked you to provide a presentation for the other stakeholders involved in the research study. She wants all stakeholders on the team to have a general understanding of foundational scholarship in writing studies. She believes this presentation will inform stakeholders’ research efforts: to investigate how AI is reshaping authorship, authority, learning, and work, and what that means for human agency, authorship, copyright, and creativity.

The Problem Space

GenAI is being widely adopted.

• A February 2025 UK report by HEPI and Kortex found 92% of the 1041 full time students they surveyed used genAI for coursework. 
• Last April, the Digital Education Council found 86 per cent reported using AI for academic purposes in a survey of nearly 4,000 students across 16 countries. A remarkable 80 per cent felt their universities’ AI integration into the curriculum didn’t meet their expectations, and 72 per cent felt their universities should provide more AI training.

In turn, business is moving full steam ahead.

• According to Microsoft’s 2024 Work Trend Index, based on a survey of 31,000 workers across 31 countries, 75 per cent of knowledge workers now use AI at work, nearly doubling in the past six months.
• In its 2025 Work Trend Index, Microsoft found 78% of business leaders are already planning to add AI-specific roles, and nearly half (46%) are automating entire workflows or business processes with AI.
• In McKinsey’s 2025 report on Superagency in the workplace, 92% of companies plan to increase AI investments over the next three years (Mayer et al., 2025).

Despite this widespread adoption of GenAI in the workplace by knowledge workers and in school settings by students, higher education authorities has serious concerns about the ethics of using GenAI.

Faculty and administrators worry that GenAI tools promote intellectual shortcuts, compromise student learning, and undermine the development of critical thinking and writing skills. The ease with which GenAI generates fluent prose raises fears about plagiarism, misattribution, and the erosion of academic integrity. Moreover, the opacity of large language models—how they generate responses, what data they were trained on, and whether their output is accurate or biased—poses significant challenges for citation, verification, and trust. These concerns have left many institutions unsure of how to respond: should they prohibit GenAI, permit it with guardrails, or fully integrate it into teaching and assessment practices?

A recent study led by Hui Wang et al. (2024) at the University of Arizona found that out of the 100 top US universities, more than one-third had unclear or undecided policies on AI use and more than half left decisions to individual instructors.

Faculty are deeply divided regarding whether use of AI constitutes academic dishonesty. Lance Eaton (2025) has collected 194 faculty members’ AI-policy statements from institutions across the globe. Eaton’s corpus demonstrates widespread disagreement about whether AI tools should be prohibited, permitted or encouraged.

In order to develop Navigating AI Disruption: A Guide for the University Community, stakeholders need an historical understanding of what writing is and why it matters to humanity.

Guidelines and Evaluation

Guidelines for Discussion Post on Ong and Bolter Readings

Audience: This post is part of your contribution to a funded research initiative sponsored by your university’s AI Task Force. Dr. Stacy Adams, your university’s AI Czar, has awarded research stipends to three teams—students, faculty, and business professionals—to investigate how generative AI is reshaping writing, communication, and education.

You are writing this post for your colleagues who work on the following research teams:

• a Student Research Team (your peers),
• a Faculty Research Team (instructors and researchers),
• a Business Leader Research Team (industry professionals and hiring managers).

These teams are funded by Dr. Stacy Adams, your university’s AI Czar. Dr. Adams has hired your team — the student team — and the other teams to work on Navigating AI Disruption: A Guide for the University Community, which, when finished will be a public-facing website that defines responsible AI policies and practices for students, teachers, and researchers.

In this post, Dr. Adams has asked you to summarize Ong and Bolter’s work and explain its significance to the university community.

Instructions

1. To better understand the genre of a research summary, read the following articles
   • Summary – Learn How To Summarize Sources in Academic & Professional Writing
   • The CRAAP Test –  Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose
   • Citation Conventions – What is the Role of Citation in Academic & Professional Writing?
2. Carefully read the following Ong and Bolter readings:.
   • Chapter 4 from Orality and Literacy (Ong, 2002)
   • Chapter 2 from Writing as a Technology (Bolter, J. D., 2001). (Note: You can access the book from USF’s Libraries page.)
3. Experiment with at least two GenAI tools
   • Write a prompt that explains your rhetorical situation.
   • Ask at least two GenAI tools to summarize the two assigned readings. Use the C.R.A.A.P method to assess the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose of Ong and Bolter’s works.
   • Compare the GenAI’s output to your own understanding of the Ong and Bolter articles.
4. Compose summaries of the Ong and Bolter readings.
   1. Open a writing space, such as a gDoc or Word page. To help develop your own authority as a writer, write the first draft of the annotation in your own words. This is an important step because the GenAI can get the summary wrong and it may still not understand your rhetorical situation. You always need to critically evaluate summaries produced by GenAI tools.
      • When figuring out how to
   2. Check your draft agasint the content provided by the GenAI. Pull in sentences and ideas from the GenAI. Try re-iterating the drafts in multiple GenAI tools. Reiterate to the point that the document uses the AI-generated content and your content but conveys your thoughts. Don’t trust the AI’s content so much as yours.
5. Upload your post to the designated discussion forum in Canvas by the due date.

Rubric for Evaluating the Summaries

Guidelines for Responding to Two Peers’ Posts

After submitting your discussion post, read at least two posts written by your classmates. Choose posts that interpret Ong and Bolter in ways that either (a) help you think differently or (b) you believe may misrepresent or oversimplify the original texts.

Write a response to each post that is at least 100 words and does the following:

• Evaluate how clearly and accurately the author summarized Ong’s and Bolter’s arguments. Are the summaries faithful to the texts? Is it always clear whose ideas are being discussed? Does the author use quotations and paraphrases judiciously and in compliance with APA 7 conventions?
• Notes whether the post effectively synthesizes the two authors’ shared ideas
• Points out vague, abstract, or AI-generated-sounding language that weakens the clarity or credibility of the author’s summary.

Your tone should be respectful, professional, and helpful—just as if you were collaborating with other researchers.

Peer Response Rubric

Guidelines for the Presentation

Dr. Adams has asked for you to address the following topics in your presentation:

1. What is writing?
   • Why is writing defined as a technology?
2. What is the value of writing?
   • How, according to Bolter (2001) and Ong (2003), does writing transform consciousness, thinking, and society?
   • What is its function, significance, and importance of writing to human development?
3. What affordances and constraints do Ong and Bolter associate with orality, literacy, and secondary orality?
4. How does society typically respond to new technologies?
5. How do new writing technologies, new literacies, reconfigure power and authority?

Your presentation must:

• Contain mostly visuals (original or properly cited images) on slides, with extended text in the speaker notes section.
• Demonstrate an awareness of the concepts expressed in the required readings
• Include at least two direct quotes or paraphrases from Walter Ong’s Orality and Literacy (2002). Use APA 7 to cite those sources.
• Be designed in Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, or Canva and be recorded using the slide platform’s built-in recording tools or a screencasting service such as Screencastify OR be a video of you looking into your phone and speaking without stopping and coherently citing specific sources to substantiate your thoughts.
• Be uploaded as a URL or file to Canvas by the due date.

Rubric Criteria for the Presentation

Your presentation will be evaluated based on the clarity and accuracy of your explanation, your ability to synthesize ideas from both scholars, and the effectiveness of your delivery and organization.

A (Excellent)
The presentation clearly and insightfully explains Ong’s and Bolter’s definitions of writing as a transformative technology. It demonstrates deep critical thinking and integrates at least two well-contextualized quotes or paraphrases from Orality and Literacy. Ideas are synthesized with originality and precision. The organization is logical and fluid, with smooth transitions, effective pacing, and thorough speaker notes. Slides are visually compelling, relevant, and appropriately cited. Delivery is confident, polished, and well-rehearsed, with strong audience awareness.

B (Good)
The presentation accurately explains key concepts from Ong and Bolter and includes required quotes or paraphrases. It shows thoughtful engagement with the readings, though some analysis may be surface-level or underdeveloped. The structure is clear, though transitions or pacing may need refinement. Slides support the content but may rely too much on text or lack strong visual cohesion. Delivery is clear and generally well-executed, though not fully polished.

C (Adequate)
The presentation addresses the basic requirements but may include inaccuracies, vague language, or a lack of depth. Required quotes may be misused or insufficiently explained. Organization is uneven or choppy. Slides are functional but uninspired or inconsistent. Speaker notes may be incomplete or misaligned with the visuals. Delivery may be rushed, flat, or disjointed, indicating a need for more preparation.

F (Unacceptable)
The presentation fails to demonstrate understanding of the readings or does not meet key assignment requirements. Quotes may be missing or incorrectly cited. The content lacks clarity, coherence, or relevance. Organization is confusing or minimal. Slides are missing, overly text-heavy, or unattributed. Delivery lacks engagement or preparation.

Sample Exemplary Presentations

Guidelines for the Metacognitive Report Addressing AI Usage

Please do not use GenAI to respond to write your metacognitive report.

The purpose of your metacognitive report is to describe how you used GenAI to compose your presentation and summaries of Bolter and Ong. Your audience for this report is your instructor and potentially other students in the class.

Instructions

1. Review the guidelines for writing a Metacognitive Report: Metacognitive Report – AI Writing Ethics: Balancing Agency, Voice & Disclosure. Critically reflect on the possible ways you used GenAI to compose the deliverables associaed with this major project:
   • Thought Partner – brainstorming, counterarguments, refining claims
   • Research Assistant – finding, summarizing, and cross-checking sources
   • Composing Assistant – supporting invention, drafting, revising, rereading
   • Citation Assistant – formatting and checking references
   • Editorial Assistant – improving clarity, coherence, and flow
   • Designer – shaping visuals and layout
   • Publishing Assistant – adapting work for new audiences or media
   • Teaching Assistant – clarifying complex concepts or modeling skills
2. Prepare a metacognitive report that is at least 250 words wrong, following these guidelines:
   1. Title the report, Metacognitive Report – Presentation — Why Human Writing Matters in the Age of AI.
   2. Beneath the title, left justified, record the number of words in the report.
   3. At the top of your document, insert one table for each GenAI tool you used.
      • Each table should have the following columns:
        • Step in the Writing Process (Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, etc.)
        • Number of Chats / Sessions
        • Primary Purpose(s) (Brainstorming, outlining, citation help, style editing, etc.)
        • Notes on Use (1–2 sentences) – Describe briefly what you did with the tool and how you integrated/revised it.
        • Chat Log URL or Archive (link to the exported transcript or note where it is saved)
      • Beneath the table(s), write a narrative that explain the story behind the table, why you used the tools, what you learned, and how you stayed in control of the process. More specifically, use this organzatonal structure:
        • Overview – Name the tools you used and why you chose them. (2–3 sentences)
        • Critical Moments – Select 2–3 steps in the process (e.g., prewriting, revising, designing). Describe what AI gave you, how you revised it, and why those choices mattered. (1–2 paragraphs)
          • Example prompts: Did AI mischaracterize a theory you had to fix? Did it give you a table or image idea you chose not to use? Did it push your tone in a direction you rejected?
        • Reflection – Explain how your agency depended on iterating. How did multiple rounds of questioning, revision, or redirection keep you in charge? What risks did you notice (fabricated references, misleading summaries, style drift) and how did iteration help you detect/correct them? (Minimum of 1 paragraph.)
        • Takeaway – What did you learn about using AI critically in writing, and what will you carry forward? (1 paragraph)
3. Upload to Canvas by due date. (Upload this assignment in the same Canvas drop box as your white paper.)

Example of a Metacognitive Report

Metacognitive Report – AI Writing Ethics: Balancing Agency, Voice & Disclosure.

Student Name: XXXXXX
Word Count: XX

For this assignment, I used ChatGPT as both a drafting and revising assistant. I experimented with it first to generate summaries of Ong and Bolter, then later for slide design, note condensation, and citation support. At every stage, I had to decide whether AI’s output was accurate and usable or whether it needed rewriting.

Critical Moments

The first critical moment came with the summaries. I asked ChatGPT to summarize Ong and Bolter, but when I checked the drafts, I noticed fabricated quotations and a flattening of their arguments. For example, ChatGPT quoted Ong on “writing as the death of memory,” but I couldn’t find this exact wording anywhere in Orality and Literacy. I deleted the fabricated quote, reread the chapter, and rewrote the summary myself. Similarly, in Bolter’s case, ChatGPT presented his argument as “computers replacing books,” which ignored his central concept of remediation. I returned to Bolter’s text, underlined key passages, and revised the summary to better capture his point. This back-and-forth reminded me that while AI can speed up surface summaries, it can also distort or invent details that only careful reading can correct.

Another key moment came in the design stage. I asked ChatGPT to create draft slides from my summaries, and it produced long text-heavy slides. These gave me a sense of what a full deck might look like, but I knew the design wouldn’t work for my audience. I reorganized the order, cut down the text, and then built my own slides in Canva, integrating visuals that matched my rhetorical goals. This way, AI provided scaffolding, but the final design reflected my creativity and voice.

Reflection

Iterations mattered here. It took me three back-and-forth sessions with ChatGPT just to refine the summaries into something I could work with, and even then, I had to rewrite them to be accurate. The same was true for slide design: the first draft was unusable, but by the third round I had prompts that gave me a starting point. These iterations proved that I wasn’t just copying AI output — I was interrogating it, reshaping it, and using it as a stepping-stone.

Takeaway

This project showed me that AI can help generate drafts and visual ideas, but its outputs must always be checked, verified, and rewritten. By iterating multiple times, spotting fabricated quotations, and redesigning slides, I made sure the final product reflected both my understanding of Ong and Bolter and my own authorial style. AI supported the process, but the accuracy, creativity, and control remained in my hands.

Works Cited

Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ong, W. J. (2002). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Guidelines for Presentation Feedback

After watching at least two of your classmates’ recorded presentations, respond to each with thoughtful, constructive feedback. Your goal is to help your peers understand how effectively they communicated their ideas — and to show that you listened closely to their summaries and ideas.

Each response (100+ words) should include:

1. A specific moment you noticed – Mention a slide, quote, image, or claim that stood out to you. What did it help you understand or consider in a new way?
2. Feedback on clarity and delivery – Was the speaker clear and persuasive? Did the visuals help? Was the pacing or organization effective?
3. Your own reflection – How did the presentation affect your thinking about writing, AI, cognition, or the future of human communication?