Will I Even Teach Writing Anymore? An Examination of First-Year Writing Faculty’s Responsibility to Teach About or With ChatGPT

Abstract

In late November of 2022, faculty continuing to navigate the considerable teaching and research challenges posed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic were confronted with another existential problem: the juggernaut known as ChatGPT. This article will examine the academy’s response to this sudden intrusion of Large Language Models (LLMs) into classrooms, workplaces, and daily life, with a focus on interrogating the responsibility of and to instructors of first-year writing (FYW). I argue that the breathless calls to reinvent courses, assignments, and syllabus policies to “accommodate” LLMs play into a normative system and may pose additional barriers to success for students, including those who are neurodivergent, as well as for new instructors and contingent faculty. Moreover, without mindful consideration at the programmatic level about where usage of such tools does—and does not—belong in curricula, composition instructors run the risk of innovating their courses and even the discipline beyond recognition.