Critical Thinking, AI Co-Authorship, and the Future of Academic Writing

In this episode of Deep Learning Dialogues, hosts Whitney McKinley and Katrina Gouett sit down with Dr. Christin Wright-Taylor, Manager of Writing Services at Wilfrid Laurier University, to explore the intersection of generative AI, academic writing, and the human voice. Shifting the conversation away from fear and toward hope, Dr. Wright-Taylor discusses why generative AI should be viewed as a "calculator for language" and argues that foundational writing skills are more critical than ever for guiding and assessing AI outputs. The conversation explores the necessity of protecting the "incubator of thinking" by encouraging students to embrace messy, authentic first drafts before turning to digital tools. By reframing writing as an iterative process rather than a transactional product, this episode challenges educators to evaluate their own implicit biases regarding academic tone and explore how rubrics can evolve to celebrate diverse cultural capital and unique student voices.

Dr. Christin Wright-Taylor is the Manager of Writing Services at Wilfrid Laurier University, where she and her team specialize in helping students build self-efficacy and critical thinking through the writing process. She holds a PhD in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of Waterloo, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing. Over her 25-year career as an educator, writer, and scholar, Dr. Wright-Taylor has written books and contributed to national publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post. Dedicated to helping students cultivate a "writing state of mind," she is a passionate advocate for preserving human curiosity and individual voice in an increasingly automated landscape. You can find Christin on LinkedIn.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Bad Ideas About Writing edited by Cheryl E. Ball and Drew M. Loewe: https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/badideas/badideasaboutwriting-book.pdf
• "Should Writers Use They Own English" by Vershawn Ashanti Young: https://artsci.tamu.edu/english/_files/_documents/research/use-they-own.pdf
• Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies: Teaching and Assessing Writin for a Socially Just Future by Asao B. Inoue:  https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/antiracist-writing-assessment-ecologies-teaching-and-assessing-writing-for-a-socially-just-future

Want to know more?

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Want to get in touch? Contact Katrina & Whitney by email at: [email protected] and [email protected] or on LinkedIn

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