The Bard College Institute for Writing and Thinking (IWT) seeks to enrich learning in all disciplines through collaborative writing practices.
With IWT, teachers can renew themselves intellectually, practice new strategies, and envision classrooms in which writing is a catalyst for learning.
If they aren’t writing, are they thinking?
We have heard from many in recent months who have urgent concerns about ChatGPT and its impact in our classrooms. This new technology brings up fundamental questions about the relationships between writing, thinking, and learning.
While recognizing that there are a wide range of responses to ChatGPT across disciplines and institutions, we believe that writing-based teaching practices are a crucial part of a holistic response to AI writing. IWT practices can permeate every aspect of our teaching, and generate student writing that develops critical thinking skills and essays that are so much more than a finished product.
Writing-based teaching does the opposite of ChatGPT by welcoming students’ messy, exploratory writing in which their individual voices, ideas, and questions are valued and articulated. Student writing then becomes the seedbed for a highly individualized approach to academic assignments. The Institute’s core approach to learning through shared writing and thinking are more urgent now than ever, as we engage in pedagogical practices that foster individuality, equity, and engagement.
ChatGPT strategies will be integrated into our on-site and on-campus offerings including the April Conference and the July Weeklong Workshops.
We are here, we are listening, and together we have the tools to find our way as educators.
“The prompts and practices employed were truly generative, and this is what brings me to Bard again and again. Losing myself in writing for a day sustains me in a way that nothing else does.”
